">'■ 


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016^3 


COPYRIGHT,   1912,   BY  RUTH   MARY  WEEKS 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CONTENTS 

Author's  Note v 

Editor's  Introduction vii 

I.   Foreword i 

II.   The  Hand  of  Iron 6 

III.  The  Public  School 24 

IV.  A  School  for  the  Plain  Man  ...  38 
V.  Trade  Education  and  the  Woman    .57 

VI.  In  the  Country 74 

VII.  Trade  Education  and  Organized  La- 
bor   91 

VIII.   Trade  Education  and  Socialism   .     .102 

IX.   Foreign  Trade  Schools    ^  .     .    .     .109 

X.   American  Experiments 149 

XI.  The  Type  of  Trade  School  Needed 

in  the  United  States 167 

XII.   Choosing  a  Vocation 181 

XIII.  Conclusion 190 

XIV.  Bibliography   on    Elementary    Voca- 

tional Education 195 

Outline 203 


266948 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

The  author  is  indebted  to  the  late  Stadtrat  Emile 
Munsterberg  of  Berlin,  Monsieur  Et.  Martin 
Saint-Leon  of  Paris,  Mr.  C.  W.  A.  Veditz  of 
Washington,  Miss  Alice  Barrows  of  New  York, 
and  many  school  officials  at  home  and  abroad 
for  aid  in  collecting  material  for  this  volume;  to 
Dr.  Richard  T.  Ely  of  Madison,  for  helpful  review 
of  the  present  text ;  and  to  her  mother,  Mrs.  E.  R. 
Weeks,  for  constant  critical  assistance  in  prepar- 
ing the  manuscript  for  publication. 

Ruth  Mary  Weeks. 
May  6,  1912. 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

It  seems  to  be  difficult  for  us  to  learn  that  human 
institutions  may  not  be  borrowed  outright.  The 
sight  of  some  new  form  of  efficiency  in  our  neigh- 
bors over  the  sea  stirs  the  conscious  progressives 
at  home  to  minute  and  wholesale  imitation.  This 
is  particularly  true  where  we  feel  second-rate,  — 
in  art,  science,  and  education.  In  politics  and 
industry,  we  are  a  trifle  cock-sure  of  ourselves 
and  copy  scarcely  at  all ;  but  elsewhere  we  tend 
to  be  over-impressed  by  foreign  example. 

The  history  of  conscious  educational  reform  in 
America  offers  many  illustrations  of  indiscrimi- 
nate institution-matching,  all  the  way  from  the 
kindergarten  to  the  university.  There  have  been 
large  gains,  of  course ;  but  we  have  paid  an  un- 
necessarily high  price  in  maladjustments.  If  only 
we  had  noted  the  essential  elements  of  foreign 
experience  and  moulded  the  institutional  forms 
to  suit  our  own  population  and  national  ideals, 
we  could  have  made  our  institutions  far  more 
effective. 

Just  at  the  present  hour,  when  we  are  assum- 
ing a  vast  program  of  vocational  education,  we 
vii 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

should  have  a  particular  care  as  to  the  way  in 
which  we  are  influenced  by  European  experience 
and  example.  The  social  currents  of  our  own  life 
can  no  more  be  neglected  in  the  construction  of 
new  human  institutions,  than  the  laws  of  gravi- 
tation in  the  building  of  material  structures.  It 
is  all  a  matter  of  concrete  conditions  —  the  place 
where  we  build,  the  materials  used  for  construc- 
tion and  the  purpose  we  have  in  mind.  Our  hu- 
man conditions  never  are  coincident  with  those 
in  any  European  country,  and  we  ought  at  the 
very  outset  to  assume  that  no  European  system 
of  vocational  training  will  wholly  fit  our  needs. 
This  might  be  laid  down  as  a  first  principle. 

We  shall  of  course  need  to  study  foreign  prac- 
tice. A  truly  rational  progress  is  always  founded 
upon  the  lessons  of  experience,  and  when  we 
have  had  little  of  our  own,  we  are  bound  to  un- 
derstand that  which  belongs  to  others.  But  cer- 
tainly we  need  to  give  as  close  study  to  our  own 
social  and  economic  conditions  as  to  the  educa- 
tional devices  of  a  foreign  land,  for  whatever  we 
see  in  the  latter  must  be  transmuted  in  terms 
of  the  former.  In  no  other  way  can  we  render 
foreign  experience  into  practice  economically  and 
stably  valuable  for  ourselves. 

Just  because  the  following  monograph  presents 
viii 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

the  problem  of  vocational  education  with  an  ap- 
proach and  emphasis  opposite  to  that  of  much 
current  discussion,  it  is  offered  to  the  educational 
public  with  a  special  faith  in  it,s  worth.  The  vol- 
ume is  more  than  a  stimulating  presentation  of 
facts  and  generalizations ;  it  exemplifies  a  method 
of  studying  a  vital  institutional  problem  that 
ought  to  gain  a  wider  acceptance  among  our 
educational  reformers. 


i 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 


FOREWORD 

The  fact  that  only  nine  per  cent  of  the  pupils 
who  enter  the  early  grades  of  American  public 
schools  finish  a  high  school  course  should  be  the 
cause  of  serious  concern  to  every  citizen.  The 
taxpayer  may  well  ask  himself  why  he  contrib- 
utes over  twice  as  much  for  the  support  of  sec- 
ondary schools  that  benefit  one  tenth  of  the  pop- 
ulation as  for  that  of  those  in  which  most  chil- 
dren receive  their  only  education.  The  educator 
must  marvel  that,  with  all  the  care  and  money 
lavished  on  our  higher  institutions  of  learning, 
they  prove  so  unattractive  to  the  majority  of  our 
children.  And  the  worker  for  the  public  weal 
can  find  but  a  slowly  widening  outlook  for  social 
betterment  when  so  small  a  per  cent  of  the  next 
generation  are  availing  themselves  of  the  means 
|of  improving  their  condition. 

That  the  public  school  is  the  corner  stone  of 
American  democracy,  has  been  reiterated  until 
i 


-  THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

it  is  the  merest  platitude,  but  like  most  plati- 
tudes, it  is  absolutely  true.  If  the  people  are  to 
govern,  they  must  know  how  to  govern. 

The  present  is  a  time  of  feverish  activity  in 
all  lines  of  philanthropic  work.  Social  settle- 
ments flourish.  The  juvenile  court  is  an  estab- 
lished factor  in  legal  procedure.  Prisons  are 
transformed  into  reformatories.  Charity  organ- 
ization societies  coordinate  the  work  of  a  hun- 
dred different  agencies  for  alleviating  distress. 
And  while  these  various  agencies  have  been 
helping  the  victims  of  society,  they  have  learned 
a  great  lesson.  The  cause  of  the  distress  they 
strive  to  eliminate  is  in  almost  every  case  igno- 
rance. The  ignorant  mother  fed  her  baby  soured 
milk  and  it  sickened.  The  ignorant  consumptive 
slept  in  darkness  and  filth,  with  closed  windows, 
and  died.  The  ignorant  voter  sold  his  franchise 
to  a  boss  and  stole  from  his  own  pocket.  The  ig- 
norant public  allowed  dark,  unsanitary  tenements 
to  be  built  in  its  midst  and  found  itself  confronted 
with  a  slum  problem.  The  ignorant  immigrant 
contracted  himself  to  a  master  for  half  a  man's 
wages  and  his  family  starved.  The  ignorant 
parent  took  his  child  to  work  with  him  in  the^P 
factory  and  reduced  his  income.  Less  obvious 
examples  do  not  lack.    Ignorance  —  public  or 

2 


FOREWORD 

private :  at  this  door  can  be  laid  most  wrongs 
and  most  endurance  of  wrong.  If,  then,  to  borrow 
Emile  Munsterberg's  phrase,  "The  aim  of  social 
work  is  to  make  itself  superfluous,"  the  way  to 
effect  a  fundamental  betterment  in  social  condi- 
tions is  to  combat  ignorance.  No  matter  how 
picturesque,  no  matter  how  intelligently  con- 
ducted and  undoubtedly  beneficent  such  enter- 
prises as  reform  schools,  juvenile  courts,  poor- 
relief  agencies,  tuberculosis  camps,  and  the  like 
may  be,  their  results  are  at  best  patchwork. 
They  are  necessary ;  they  are  magnificent ;  they 
are  indeed  educational :  but  they  do  not  strike 
to  the  bottom.  They  make  suffering  more  toler- 
able ;  and  they  also  serve  to  show  what  an  amaz- 
ing number  of  things  humanity  needs  to  be 
taught. 

It  is  true  that  the  proportion  of  grammar  school 
to  high  school  enrollment  has  tripled  in  the  last 
fifty  years.  Yet  is  it  a  too  paradoxical  inversion 
of  cause  and  effect  partly  to  explain  our  previous 
growth  in  high  school  attendance  by  the  wide 
extension  of  free  school  facilities  which  has  taken 
place  in  this  last  half-century?  And  is  there  not 
reason  to  doubt  whether,  under  the  present  re- 
gime, this  growth  will  or  should  continue?  In 
other  words,  in  settled  communities  where  there 
3 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

are  educational  opportunities  for  all,  has  not  the 
attendance  upon  high  schools  of  the  orthodox 
academic  type  reached  a  comparatively  steady 
ratio  to  population  ? 

Thus  we  return  to  the  point  that  because  ed- 
ucation is  the  only  sure  instrument  of  progress, 
it  ought  to  cause  grave  concern  to  every  person 
interested  in  the  welfare  of  our  country  that  as 
yet  so  small  a  per  cent  of  our  children  take  full 
advantage  of  the  opportunities  liberally  offered 
them. 

The  object  of  this  book  will  be  to  explain  why, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  author,  the  attendance  in 
our  upper  grades  is  so  small ;  in  what  points  our 
schools  fail  to  meet  the  needs  of  our  people ;  and 
how  the  course  of  instruction  may  be  made  more 
practical  and  thus  hold  children  in  school  until 
such  time  as  they  are  better  trained  for  citizen- 
ship. It  will  also  attempt  to  place  the  movement 
for  trade  education  in  relation  to  other  social 
movements  of  the  day.  This  discussion  will  be 
illustrated  by  a  comparison  with  foreign  methods, 
based  on  personal  investigations  of  French  and 
German  schools. 

Of  necessity,  these  pages  must  repeat  much 
that  is  an  old  story  to  students  of  the  question. 
Indeed,  the  present  work  represents  not  so  much 
4 


FOREWORD 

new  arguments  and  conclusions,  as  a  marshaling 
of  old  facts  in  a  somewhat  more  comprehensive 
array  than  has  yet  been  attempted.  However, 
as  Charles  Warner  wrote  four  years  ago  in 
Charities  and  the  Commons,  "  Although  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  public  schools,  as  they  are  now 
conducted,  to  meet  fully  the  greatest  educational 
need  of  our  times,  is  generally  admitted,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  influences  that  have 
brought  about  the  development  of  a  one-sided 
system  of  education,  strong  in  the  literary  and 
scientific  elements  but  weak  and  ineffective  in 
vocational  aims  and  results,  are  fully  understood ; 
whether  the  ultimate  effect  upon  the  productive 
industries,  upon  commerce,  and  upon  society  of 
a  continuance  of  such  a  scheme  of  education,  is 
generally  appreciated;  and  whether  the  respon- 
sibility of  state  and  municipal  authorities  in  the 
matter  is  recognized." 


II 


THE  HAND  OF   IRON 

"  A  rational  system  of  education  will  take  account  of  changes 
in  society  and  keep  pace  with  their  evolution."  —  Astier. 

Your  true  pedagogue  is  essentially  a  man  of  the 
world.  He  looks  abroad  to  see  the  life  for  which 
he  must  train  his  pupils  and  thereby  shapes  his 
program.  Before  we  can  intelligently  criticize 
our  school  system,  we  must  formulate  a  defini- 
tion of  society  to  serve  us  as  a  touchstone.  Judg- 
ing by  the  direction  of  the  most  vigorous  crea- 
tive activity  of  the  present  day,  we  may  say  that 
we  live  in  The  Age  of  Industry.  As  feudalism 
was  the  supreme  offering  of  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries  to  history,  so  our  industries  will  be  our 
contribution  to  progress.  Into  them  go  the  im- 
agination, the  inventive  genius,  the  daring  of  the 
American  people. 

Our  industry  has  peculiarities  which  distin- 
guish it  from  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
Holland  and  Belgium  and  Italy  were  humming 
workshops  and  the  merchants  were  princes  even 
as  they  are  to-day.  Then  men  labored  with  their 
6 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

two  hands,  and  from  their  skillful  ringer  tips  there 
passed  into  their  work  something  of  the  very  life 
and  thought  and  feeling  of  the  craftsman,  until 
every  most  trifling  product,  every  cluster  of  stiff 
roses  carved  on  some  blackened  stick  of  furni- 
ture, every  curious  bird  and  beast  tucked  into 
the  stonework  of  old  churches,  seems  humanized. 
But  industry  has  long  since  ceased  to  employ  the 
hands  of  its  workers.  It  uses  more  and  more  the 
iron  hand  of  the  machine.  To  write,  to  sew, 
to  embroider  —  M.  Brizon 1  details  a  dozen  pro- 
cesses in  which  the  machine  with  an  almost  un- 
canny dexterity  supplants  human  fingers.  With 
what  vividness  was  the  saying,  "  The  man  does 
not  work ;  he  watches  the  machine  work,"  brought 
home  to  me  in  a  New  Haven  screw  factory ! 
There  in  a  long  dark  room  stood  row  after  row 
of  machines,  all  operating  with  a  low,  clicking 
sound.  Each  row  represented  the  entire  process 
of  manufacture,  from  the  time  the  steel  wire  was 
wound  off  a  reel  into  the  first  apparatus  to  the 
moment  when  a  completed  screw  dropped  into 
a  box  behind  the  last  machine.  Several  girls 
walked  about  the  room  and  transferred  boxes  of 

1  Pierre  Brizon,  author  of  U  apprentissage :  Hier — Aujourd'- 
hui — Demain  and  professor  in  the  £cole  pratique  d'Industrie 
de  Rennes. 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

half-finished  screws  from  one  machine  table  to 
the  next.  This  was  their  whole  occupation.  The 
reason  for  this  was  suddenly  apparent  when  a 
long  jointed  arm  of  steel  stretched  out  slowly 
from  one  machine  to  the  box  of  raw  material  on 
the  next  table.  A  two-fingered  hand  at  the  end 
of  the  arm  closed  on  a  screw,  lifted  it  with  pre- 
cision, opened  its  clawlike  fingers,  and  dropped 
the  bit  of  steel  into  position.  As  these  hundred 
iron  hands  silently  performed  an  almost  human 
function,  something  of  the  terrible  power  of  ma- 
chinery over  the  human  lives  that  obey  its  dic- 
tates and  surrender  their  minds  to  its  mind  was 
impressed  upon  me. 

This  possible  subservience  of  the  man  to  the 
machine  is  the  point  where  education  must  act 
for  the  protection  of  humanity  against  automa- 
tonism.  The  machine  is  in  reality  an  extended 
hand,  just  as  the  pen  is  merely  an  extended  fin- 
ger. As  the  finger  obeys  the  dictates  of  the 
mind,  so  in  turn  does  the  pen.  We  are  not  domi- 
nated by  our  writing  apparatus,  but  dominate  it. 
Man  is  continually  appropriating  parts  of  his  en- 
vironment and  so  joining  them  to  his  body.  The 
typewriter,  for  instance,  is  a  more  skillful,  elabo- 
rated hand  which  enables  the  mind  to  dominate 
more  perfectly  its  writing  apparatus.  Larger  and 
8 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

more  complicated  machines  are  also  only  ex- 
tended hands  developed  to  give  the  intellect 
greater  freedom  in  carrying  out  its  inspirations. 
Yet,  far  from  giving  greater  freedom  to  the 
operator,  the  machine  often  kills  life  and  intel- 
ligence. The  weary  operative  in  the  cotton  mill 
comes  home  from  his  day-long  crossing  and  re- 
crossing  of  shuttles,  stupefied,  incapable  of  rous- 
ing himself  to  social  pleasures  without  alcoholic 
stimulus.  The  one  hundredth  of  a  shoemaker 
clips  on  buttons  year  after  year  until  his  mental 
horizon  is  bounded  by  the  circumference  of  a 
button.  The  man  is  dominated  by  his  machine ; 
instead  of  his  using  the  hand  of  iron  for  his  own 
purposes,  it  has  him  by  the  throat. 

In  commerce,  the  bookkeeper,  the  clerk,  even 
the  directing  manager  himself  become  slaves  of 
the  business  organization,  of  routine,  of  a  dis- 
embodied machine.  For  what  is  any  machine 
but  routine  immutably  fixed  in  wood  and  steel  ? 
In  every  department  of  public  service,  the  wheels 
of  institutionalism  grind  on,  relentlessly  crushing 
personality  and  overwhelming  individual  initia- 
tive by  their  tremendous  inertia. 

Extreme  specialization  in  industry  has  turned 
man  into  a  human  tool  instead  of  an  independ- 
ent, self-directing  individual.  Machinery  has  ren- 
9 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

dered  a  long  apprenticeship  and  the  mastering 
of  all  the  details  of  a  trade  unnecessary.  A 
worker  can  learn  a  single  process  in  a  few  days 
and  begin  remunerative  work  at  once.  But  the 
narrowing  results  of  over-specialized  labor  soon 
begin  to  show.  It  becomes  impossible  to  teach 
him  more  of  the  trade  in  general,  because  his 
brain  is  stunted,  and  all  his  life  he  remains  an 
unskilled  laborer  in  a  poorly  paid,  deadening  po- 
sition. If  the  operative  enters  the  factory  very 
young,  and  if  he  survives  until  he  is  sixteen,  his 
brain  becomes  so  atrophied  that  unless  he  has  pre- 
viously learned  to  read  and  write,  he  can  never 
acquire  even  these  rudiments  of  an  education. 

With  the  introduction  of  this  extreme  speciali- 
zation in  industry  has  come  a  general  decay  in 
the  old  forms  of  apprenticeship  that  were  once 
the  safeguard  against  its  dangers.  Formerly  a 
laborer  learned  a  whole  trade ;  he  was  resource- 
ful ;  he  could  turn  from  one  occupation  to  another; 
at  least  he  understood  the  relation  of  the  opera- 
tion he  performed  to  the  entire  process  of  manu- 
facture. He  had  some  intelligence  about  his  work, 
some  relation  to  the  finished  product.  But  the 
day  of  small  employers  with  small  shops,  where 
apprentices  could  be  profitably  received  and 
thoroughly  instructed,  is  past. 
10 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

There  remain  amazingly  few  industries  which 
still  take  apprentices.  Investigation  shows  that, 
out  of  four  hundred  establishments  in  Ohio,  only 
sixty  had  apprenticeship  systems  and  only  three 
aimed  to  turn  out  first-class  mechanics.  It  is  true 
that  certain  large  corporations,  such  as  the  New 
York  Central  Railroad,  have  regular  schools  of 
their  own  for  training  apprentices,  but  as  one 
shop  comprises  many  trades,  this  is  possible  only 
where  very  large  numbers  are  employed,  and  even 
then  is  such  an  expensive  undertaking  as  to  bur- 
den any  but  the  wealthiest  company.  William 
Dooley,  of  the  Lawrence  Industrial  School,  claims 
that  only  one  third  of  one  per  cent  of  men  be- 
tween fifteen  and  twenty-four  receive  instruction 
bearing  upon  their  occupation,  and  the  educa- 
tional path  of  even  this  infinitesimal  fraction  is 
rough  and  crooked.  Union  men  give  little  ade- 
quate help  to  raw  recruits,  as  they  fear  to  create 
competitors  for  their  own  positions.  Large  con- 
cerns find  the  rush  of  production  too  great  for 
them  to  spend  time  and  material  on  apprentices. 
It  pays  better  to  put  a  man  at  once  to  work  on 
some  swift  minute  process,  which  he  can  learn 
without  practice  and  perform  without  waste ;  and 
the  narrow  margin  of  profit  in  many  smallershops 
also  leads  their  owners  to  use  "  little  workers  " 
II 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

on  odd  jobs  with  no  educative  value,  but  from 
which  direct  financial  profit  accrues  to  the  busi- 
ness. The  baker's  boy  is  seen  running  errands 
instead  of  being  taught  to  bake  bread  ;  the  child 
in  the  mill  stands  by  and  hands  bobbins  to  the 
man  at  the  spinning-machine  —  a  necessary  link 
in  the  process  of  manufacture,  but  not  an  employ- 
ment calculated  to  develop  an  intelligent,  self- 
supporting  adult  worker. 

At  the  present  time,  when  there  is  the  great- 
est temptation  to  the  abuse  of  apprentices,  we 
find  no  laws  on  our  statute  books  to  protect  the 
child  in  industry  and  to  procure  him  proper  trade 
instruction.  Formerly  the  law  was  very  strict  in 
this  regard.  An  employer  could  not  receive  ap- 
prentices into  his  shop  without  giving  proof  of 
his  ability  to  instruct  them.  The  number  of  ap- 
prentices per  shop  was  limited  to  insure  each  one 
his  share  of  attention,  and  failure  to  perform  his 
duty  toward  his  apprentices  cost  the  employer 
the  privilege  of  receiving  them.  Before  entering 
upon  the  practice  of  his  vocation,  the  apprentice 
submitted,  to  a  committee  of  judges  chosen  from 
the  master  workmen  in  his  trade,  a  finished  piece 
of  work  as  guarantee  of  his  capacity.  Thus  were 
the  intelligence  of  the  individual  worker  and  the 
standard  of  the  trade  safeguarded.   This  medi- 

12 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

eval  system  fell  into  gross  abuse,  but  the  abuse 
was  due  to  a  fault,  not  in  ideal,  but  in  adminis- 
tration. The  system  was  designed  to  uphold  ex- 
cellence in  workmanship,  but  the  unregulated 
corporations,  or  free  guilds,  dominated  by  the 
employing  class,  used  it  to  uphold  their  own 
power,  and  so  brought  about  stagnation  in  indus- 
trial methods. 

But  the  day  of  apprenticeship  is,  as  we  have 
said,  over.  It  is  not  now  a  question  of  writing 
laws  to  protect  apprentices  still  left  in  isolated 
industries.  It  is  a  question  of  what  is  to  take  the 
place  of  old-time  apprenticeship  as  a  training  for 
life  work ;  of  what  is  to  insure  us  a  generation 
of  competent  laborers,  of  inventive  workmen,  not 
mere  cogs  in  the  machine  but  workMEN  who 
will  contribute  creative  mental  effort  to  the  pro- 
gress of  industry. 

In  spite  of  the  success  that  attends  modern 
production,  results  of  the  subservience  of  the  man 
and  his  mind  to  the  machine  are  not  far  to  trace. 
Enter  a  large  department  store  and  walk  past 
counter  after  counter  heaped  up  with  salable 
wares.  Banal,  senseless  stuff,  much  of  it!  That 
a  great  improvement  in  some  sections  of  pub- 
lic taste  has  come  about  of  late  is  not  to  be 
denied.  Arts  and  crafts  work  of  a  very  acceptable 
13 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

character  is  to  be  seen  jumbled  together  with 
flamboyant  rubbish  masquerading  under  the  name 
of  art.  Go  into  the  furniture  section :  simple, 
sensible,  mission  wood  forms  a  restful  oasis  in 
the  gimcrackery.  And  yet  even  these  promising 
departures  from  current  bad  taste  seem  to  have 
no  force  left  over  to  carry  production  beyond 
the  first  side-step.  A  new  style  once  discovered, 
it  is  duplicated  and  reduplicated  ad  nauseam. 
Moreover,  are  not  our  most  beautiful  modern  chairs 
and  tables  copies  of  this  or  that  antique  fashion  ? 
The  china  section  is  crowded  with  reproductions 
of  Sevres,  of  luster,  of  Wedgwood  ware.  The 
most  harmonious  rugs  are  antique  or  imitation 
thereof. 

Walk  down  a  residence  street  built  some  years 
back  before  the  reproduction  of  older  architec- 
tural styles  came  into  vogue.  What  meaningless, 
formless  houses!  What  unmitigated  plainness 
or  what  ugly,  helter-skelter  application  of  inap- 
propriate ornament !  How  self-contained  the  colo- 
nial mansion  around  the  corner  seems !  Its  walls 
and  chimneys,  porches  and  shutters,  belong  to- 
gether. It  is  unified,  artistic,  fills  the  eye  as  a 
whole.  But  even  in  the  newer  streets  lined  with 
such  houses  of  individual,  though  borrowed, 
beauty,  one  has  a  curious  impression  of  incon- 
14 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

gruity.  A  Southern  house  with  spacious  galleries 
fronts  an  old  English  manor ;  a  Swiss  chalet  and 
a  Queen  Anne  brick  stand  side  by  side.  A  Re- 
naissance palace  holds  itself  compactly  aloof  from 
a  rambling  Spanish  Mission  in  stucco.  And 
on  opposite  corners  are  a  Jewish  synagogue 
in  perfect  imitation  of  the  Parthenon,  and  a 
Methodist  church  in  German  Gothic.  One  rubs 
one's  eyes  in  wonder  if  this  be  a  sober  everyday 
street  or  an  architectural  mask-ball.  One  expects 
to  see  the  residences  whip  off  their  motley  and 
appear  in  modern  American  garb.  But,  no !  There 
is  no  American  garb  for  them  to  put  on.  Our 
civilization  has  not  yet  expressed  itself  in  stone. 
It  is  not  yet  thoroughly  enough  unified,  and  when 
it  departs  from  beaten  tracks,  falls  into  chaotic 
scrollwork  and  the  like. 

In  such  generalizations,  it  is  possible  to  over- 
state grossly.  To  much  that  is  said  in  the  pres- 
ent chapter,  the  reader  must  make  his  own  men- 
tal reservation.  There  is  fortunately  a  reverse  to 
the  picture,  but  at  this  moment  we  are  concerned 
with  the  darker  side  and  with  the  reasons  for  its 
dimness.  The  inartistic,  heterogeneous  character 
of  the  bulk  of  our  manufactured  articles  is  par- 
tially traceable  to  the  facts  of  production  dis- 
cussed in  the  foregoing  pages.  The  first  principle 
15 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

of  art  is  unity,  wholeness.  The  work  of  art  is  an 
integral  thing,  the  perfect  expression  of  a  com- 
plete thought  or  feeling.  The  man  who  deals  in 
little  scraps  of  life  can  never  produce  anything 
artistic.  He  can  never  write  a  novel  —  only  a 
string  of  disjointed  scenes.  He  can  never  paint 
a  picture  —  only  a  huddled  group  of  unrelated 
objects.  He  can  never  compose  a  melody  —  only 
a  succession  of  isolated  notes  without  cadence. 
Does  he  turn  himself  to  humble  decorative  arts, 
the  quality  that  fuses  diverse  parts  together  into 
a  harmonious  whole  will  be  equally  lacking.  The 
border  of  Brussels  lace  has  its  laws  of  fitness  as 
well  as  the  symphony.  The  carved  center  table 
has  the  same  claim  to  integrity  as  the  drama. 

But  what  of  the  producers  of  our  laces  and 
center  tables,  of  our  crockery  and  wall  paper  ? 
Do  they  deal  in  complete  thoughts  and  feelings  ? 
Do  they  deal  in  wholes,  or  only  in  scraps  of  life? 
Follow  a  simple  article  like  a  china  tea  cup 
through  its  creation  in  a  New  Jersey  factory. 
Does  it  grow  gradually  beneath  the  hand  that 
conceived  it  till  it  stands  fragile  and  perfect,  the 
line  of  gold  within  the  delicate  bowl  prophetic  of 
bright  amber  drafts,  the  handle  molded  for  the 
touch  of  slim  fingers,  and  the  slender  spray  of 
flowers  without  the  brim  suggesting  the  evanes- 
16 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

cent  aroma  of  the  tea  ?  No  !  the  process  has  been 
most  un poetical.  The  cup  has  passed  through  a 
hundred  hands  on  its  way  to  the  delivery  room. 
One  man  worked  the  clay  ;  another  molded  it ; 
another  painted  the  flowers  by  a  prescribed  pat- 
tern ;  another  thrust  it  into  the  baking-oven ; 
another  watched  it  and  took  it  out,  and  so  on  till 
we  reach  a  person  whose  entire  function  has  been 
to  put  on  the  tiny  spot  of  gilt  in  the  center  of 
each  blossom.  All  day  long  he  has  done  nothing 
but  apply  gilt  dots  to  flowers  on  tea  cups  of 
whose  origin  he  knows  little,  and  of  whose  desti- 
nation he  cares  less.  If  some  one  should  invent 
a  machine  that  could  apply  gilt  dots  with  unfail- 
ing accuracy,  the  man  would  disappear  from  in- 
dustry and  no  one  be  the  loser.  That  he  is  a  man 
counts  for  nothing.  How  can  the  laborer  who 
makes  so  microscopic  a  part  of  an  object  con- 
tribute to  its  artistic  quality?  Of  course  he  is 
expected  to  contribute  nothing.  He  is  blindly 
following  the  plan  of  another.  Yet  he  is  study- 
ing in  the  industrial  school  which  must  shape 
our  national  taste.  He  is  dealingwith  mere  scraps 
of  his  trade.  When  called  upon  to  construct  a 
tea  cup  of  his  own,  will  it  not  be  an  ill-assorted 
patchwork  of  forms  and  lines  and  colors  ? 

A  more  obvious  result  of  the  entire  separation 
17 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

of  the  worker  from  the  finished  product  is  a  cer- 
tain deterioration  in  output  which  is  prevented 
only  by  the  greatest  diligence  on  the  part  of  in- 
spectors and  foremen.  Here,  too,  caution  must 
be  taken  not  to  overstress  a  partial  explanation 
for  a  situation  dependent  on  many  causes.  But  it 
is  only  natural  —  mankind  not  yet  being  en- 
dowed with  those  ethical  qualities  that  entail 
blind,  minute,  impersonal  right  doing  —  it  is  only 
natural  that  a  man  who  adds  a  single  spot  of  gilt 
to  a  tea  cup  will  take  less  interest  in  having  that 
cup  perfect  in  every  detail  than  if  the  entire 
article  were  the  work  of  his  own  hands  and 
would  be  known  and  criticized  as  his.  In  fact, 
"  Tom  Jones,  his  cup  "  will  be  much  better  made 
than  "  Tom,  Dick,  Harry,  and  nobody  knows  or 
cares  whose  cup."  In  these  days  of  enormous 
factories  and  antagonism  between  labor  and  capi- 
tal, we  have  lost  much  of  the  old  personal  interest 
in  the  honor  of  the  firm  which  might  once  have 
taken  the  place  of  individual  pride  and  bound 
every  hand  over  to  his  best  effort  in  even  so  small 
a  matter  as  gilt  dots.  Therefore  we  have  much 
that  is  shoddy  and  ill-made  turned  out  upon  the 
market,  and  as  the  market  has  a  voracious,  ^dis- 
criminative appetite  which  manufacturers  do  not 
neglect  to  stimulate,  much  that  is  hideous,  use- 
18 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

less,  and  undurable  finds  its  way  into  our  homes. 
The  consuming  and  producing  public  are  the  same  ; 
their  respective  taste  and  intelligence  is  a  closed 
circle. 

This  specialization  is  not  only  anti-artistic  but 
anti-progressive.  True  it  is  that  one  cause  of  our 
industrial  advance  has  been  the  specialization  of 
hand  processes  until  one  man,  in  performing  the 
same  operation  a  thousand  times  a  day,  at  last 
reduced  it  to  such  simple  terms  that  a  machine 
could  take  it  over.  But  in  the  course  of  this  de- 
velopment, we  have  lost  humanly  while  we  gained 
mechanically.  In  the  past,  the  great  inventions 
have  come  from  the  ranks  of  the  workers.  And 
though  invention  is  becoming  more  and  more  a 
special  profession,  still,  if  we  reduce  this  labor- 
ing public  to  automatic,  unthinking  machines, 
we  are  shooting  a  heavy  bolt  across  the  door  of 
progress. 

We  do  not  need  to  go  farther  into  the  discus- 
sion to  infer  that  society  has  created  a  mighty 
tool  whose  use  we  have  not  yet  mastered,  and 
which  therefore  bids  fair  to  master  us, — the  iron 
hand  of  the  machine.  It  is  a  case  of  how  to  pre 
vent  the  tail's  wagging  the  dog.  To  control  an 
best  utilize  the  mighty  equipment  which  industry 
possesses,  it  goes  without  saying  that  we  need  a 
19 


; 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

skillful,  intelligent  labor  force.  That  we  seriously 
lack  such  a  force  is  proved  by  the  complaints  of 
employers  on  every  hand.  C.  W.  Cross,  superin- 
tendent of  apprentices  for  the  New  York  Central 
Railroad,  reported  some  time  ago  that  their  shops 
were  in  straits  for  lack  of  well-prepared  machin- 
ists. Mr.  Thurber,  of  Ginn  &  Company,  says  : 
"  In  our  work,  we  need  skilled,  thoroughly  trained 
workers  whom  we  find  it  more  and  more  difficult 
to  get.  There  have  been  times  when,  if  there 
had  been  a  place  where  we  could  send  a  promis- 
ing man  to  learn  things  thoroughly,  we  would 
have  sent  him  at  our  own  expense  and  paid  him 
a  salary  to  go." 

The  National  Educational  Association,  in  its 
1909  report,  publishes  the  startling  figures  that 
fifty  per  cent  of  our  skilled  mechanics  are  for- 
eign-born and  trained  and  that  ninety-eight  per 
cent  of  the  foremen  in  New  York  manufactories 
were  educated  across  the  water.  In  other  words, 
Americans  to  fill  such  positions  are  not  to  be 
found.  The  demand  for  skilled  workers  is  other- 
wise proved  by  the  flourishing  of  private  techni- 
cal and  commercial  schools  for  adults  who  are 
trying  to  make  up  for  lost  time  and  fit  themselves 
for  the  jobs  they  see  monopolized  by  their  alien 
rivals. 

20 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  alive  to 
the  interests  of  American  workers,  has  appointed 
a  committee  to  look  into  the  question  of  indus- 
trial training.  One  reads  daily  in  the  papers,  one 
hears  daily  at  the  dinner  table,  discussions  of  the 
incompetence  of  workmen.  At  afternoon  tea, 
dainty  my  lady  can  talk  of  nothing  but  "  stupid 
Jane"  and  "inefficient  John."  There  is  even 
very  grave  suspicion  whether,  if  my  lady  were 
deserted  by  Jane  or  John,  she  could  wield  do- 
mestic implements  with  greater  effectiveness. 

If  we  doubt  the  testimony  of  employers,  we 
need  only  to  mark  the  rapidly  increasing  force 
of  vagrants  who  rotate  each  year  from  coast  to 
coast ;  we  need  only  to  remember  the  unemployed 
for  whom,  during  moderate  prosperity,  it  is  more 
and  more  difficult  to  procure  work,  and  whose 
numbers  in  times  of  acute  crisis  in  any  special 
branch  of  industry  are  appallingly  augmented. 
It  is  necessary  to  ponder  on  these  peculiarly 
modern  phenomena  alone  to  become  convinced 
that  there  is  a  tremendous  industrial  misfit  be- 
tween man  and  job.  The  two  problems  have 
many  aspects  which  are  beside  the  question  here, 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  chief  cause  of  chronic 
unemployment  is  lack  of  training  for  definite 
work,  and  that  a  common  cause  of  acute  unem- 
21 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

ployment  is  minute  specialization.  The  unintel- 
ligent specialist  when  thrown  out  of  one  occupa- 
tion finds  it  impossible  to  turn  to  any  other,  and 
must  laboriously  acquire  a  new  specialty  or  lie 
idle  till  such  time  as  there  is  again  room  for  him 
in  his  old  trade.  I  have  seen  a  comparatively 
high-grade  worker  idle  for  almost  a  year,  because 
he  was  too  old  to  be  taken  in  as  a  beginner  in 
some  other  industry.  Business  is  very  cruel  to 
the  old  ;  it  will  not  waste  time  sharpening  a  worn 
tool  when  bright,  new  ones  can  be  had. 

The  overcrowding  and  consequent  underpay- 
ing of  the  nonindustrial  pursuits  is  another  sure 
sign  of  maladjustment.  For  certain  manual  work 
it  is  impossible  to  find  American  labor,  and  were 
the  positions  not  filled  by  the  ever-arriving  im- 
migrant of  doubtful  capacity,  industry  would 
come  to  a  standstill  for  the  want  of  any  helpers, 
good  or  poor. 

In  short,  the  industrial  situation  may  be 
summed  up  as  follows :  standards  of  production 
are  open  to  improvement ;  employers  are  finding 
it  difficult  to  procure  intelligent,  skilled,  resource- 
ful workmen,  capable  of  turning  from  one  branch 
of  a  trade  to  another,  and  of  advancing  from  less 
to  more  skilled  positions;  an  ever-swelling  class 
of  unskilled  laborers  is  being  created ;  the  num- 
22 


THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

bers  of  the  unemployed  are  growing;  and  many 
manual  tasks  would  remain  undone  were  it  not 
for  the  influx  of  only  half-desirable  foreigners. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  have  ridden  on 
the  crest  of  prosperity,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
as  a  manufacturing  country  we  stand  among  the 
first,  the  far-sighted  man  will  herein  detect  symp- 
toms of  disintegration.  Although  we  are  con- 
fronted by  no  such  "  crisis  in  apprenticeship " 
as  has  destroyed  the  century-long  French  pre- 
eminence in  hand  industries,  the  political  scien- 
tist may  well  strive  to  forestall  that  conceivable 
event.  As  a  nation  we  desire  to  be  self-sufficient ; 
as  a  people  we  desire  to  be  strong  and  intelligent. 
The  dominant  factor  in  our  national  development 
we  must  not  neglect.  Certain  social  phenomena 
of  poverty  and  crime  are  manifest  among  us, 
phenomena  which  have  absorbed  the  attention 
of  the  public  to  the  exclusion  of  the  deeply  un- 
derlying fact  that,  living  in  an  age  of  industry, 
we  have  not  yet  learned  how  to  be  wisely  indus- 
trious. Apprenticeship  is  a  dead  letter.  Where 
shall  we  learn  ? 


Ill 

THE   PUBLIC   SCHOOL 

The  American  belief  in  humanity  is  embodied 
in  our  public  schools.  Biologists  tell  us  that 
children  are  born  much  more  nearly  equal  than 
we  have  dreamed,  and  that  not  nature,  but  star- 
vation has  produced  the  myriad  of  stunted  beings 
who  cumber  society  with  their  unprofitable  lives. 
To  smelt  this  crude  ore  of  human  possibilities 
into  serviceable  gold,  we  have  public  schools. 
The  creed  our  fathers  held,  when  they  declared 
for  liberty  and  equality,  is  still  ours.  We  believe 
that  all  men  have  a  right  to  be  of  as  much  use 
as  they  can  in  the  world,  and  we  prove  our  faith 
in  the  perfectibility  of  all  our  people  by  investing 
in  their  education. 

Therefore  the  public  school  labors  to  open  the 
doors  of  culture  to  every  child  within  its  juris- 
diction. Equality  of  worldly  goods  we  cannot 
have ;  but  at  least  in  the  schools  we  shall  have 
democracy  of  training.  An  ideal  type  is  held 
before  us  as  the  goal  of  study  —  the  "  all-round 
man."  No  undemocratic  limitations  must  be  put 
24 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

upon  the  growing  boy.  His  education  must  be 
fitted  to  the  highest  as  well  as  to  the  lowest  circle 
in  which  it  can  be  his  lot  to  move.  Therefore 
early  decision  upon  a  future  calling  is  discour- 
aged, lest  perchance  a  Shakespeare  should  tie 
himself  to  carpentry  before  his  genius  comes  to 
light.  And  so,  having  insecurely  bagged  that 
slippery  eel,  general  intelligence,  the  high  school 
graduate  sallies  forth  upon  the  world  in  search 
of  what  fate  sends  his  way  to  do.  Unawares  that 
"insecurely"  slipped  into  the  sentence.  Just  as 
unexpectedly  an  undemocratic  element  has  crept 
into  education  through  the  would-be  democratic 
effort  to  keep  it  the  same  for  all. 

Naturally  enough,  when  men  first  struggled 
for  freedom,  it  was  in  the  realm  of  abstract  know- 
ledge that  they  found  themselves  least  bound  by 
the  limitations  of  everyday  life.  Rich  and  poor 
could  multiply  with  the  same  accuracy  and,  when 
polished  to  the  proper  brightness,  read  literature 
with  the  same  fervor.  On  this  wide  common, 
they  could  disport  themselves  untrammeled 
by  the  economic  facts  that  sent  one  to  school 
in  broadcloth  and  the  other  in  shoddy  woolen. 
Mastery  of  these  cultural  branches  had  also  been 
the  mark  of  gentility,  and  to  introduce  into  popu- 
lar education  everything  previously  monopolized 
25 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

by  the  upper  classes  was  the  first  step  of  liberal 
reformers.  Much  the  same  process  has  been 
repeated  in  establishing  higher  education  for 
women,  and,  of  late,  in  the  education  of  the  negro. 
Those  coveted  branches  long  appropriated  by 
men  were  studied  with  avidity  to  the  exclusion 
of  many  things  important  to  the  well-being  of 
women ;  and  too  many  a  negro,  in  order  to  be 
exactly  like  the  whites,  has  striven  after  Latin 
and  Greek  to  the  detriment  of  his  own  best  in- 
terests. As  we  find  conceptions  of  woman's  edu- 
cation calculated  to  make  women  resemble  men, 
just  so  the  democracy  of  the  founders  of  our 
present  generally  accepted  theory  of  education 
seems  to  have  been  to  elevate  "the  masses"  by 
recasting  them  in  an  "upper-class"  mold.  Thus 
the  public  school  is  the  embodiment,  at  once,  of 
a  democratic  attitude  toward  men,  but  a  most 
undemocratic  view  of  the  social  organization. 

The  result  of  this  experiment  is  "class  educa- 
tion "  in  our  secondary  schools.  At  most,  only 
ten  per  cent  of  the  pupils  of  the  ward  schools  go 
through  the  high  schools.  Three  fourths  of  the 
pupils  enrolled  in  the  first  year  of  the  high  schools 
drop  out  before  the  end  of  the  course.  Among 
those  who  remain,  more  than  half  are  girls,  and 
of  the  typical  graduating  class  the  majority  either 
26 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

go  to  college  or  enter  professions  and  commerce. 
In  other  words,  only  those  who  are  destined  for 
professional  and  commercial  life  attend  the  pub- 
lic high  schools,  or  the  training  given  therein  fits 
pupils  for  and  directs  them  towards  professions 
only.  The  truth  holds  much  of  both  hypotheses. 
Uniformity,  always  infinitely  undemocratic,  has, 
in  the  methods  of  our  really  excellent  high  schools, 
proved  unfair  to  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
our  children,  who,  because  they  belong  in  a  walk 
of  life  for  which  the  secondary  schools  do  not 
fit  them,  drop  out  with  the  bare  rudiments  of  a 
general  education,  long  before  they  are  prepared 
for  the  intelligent  citizenship  upon  which  the 
security  of  our  government  depends. 

A  glance  at  the  average  high  school  curric- 
ulum, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  more  than 
seven  millions  of  our  citizens  who  are  employed 
in  industrial  and  manual  pursuits,  explains  the 
situation.  Mathematics  and  history,  science, 
language  and  literature  meet  our  eye.  But  the 
unlettered  laborer  looks  in  vain  for  something 
that  will  make  his  son  a  better  locksmith  or 
bookbinder,  and  he  ponders  deeply  on  the  prob- 
lem of  how  his  boy  can  afford  to  spend  four  years 
in  the  pleasant  pursuit  of  culture,  while  he  him- 
self is  waxing  old  and  less  able  to  care  for  his 
27 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

family,  and  may  even  need  support  before  the  boy 
is  in  a  fair  way  to  make  a  living.  It  is  snobbish 
to  suppose  that  the  average  working  parent  is 
not  interested  in  the  welfare  of  his  children; 
that  he  always  sends  them  to  work  when  the  age 
of  compulsory  school  attendance  is  over,  through 
selfishness  alone.  If  the  poor  father  has  any 
hope  at  all,  it  is  usually  for  his  little  ones.  He 
will  sacrifice  much  and  work  early  and  late  that 
they  may  have  a  better  chance  than  he.  It  is 
safe  to  hazard  that,  next  to  earning  bread  for  the 
morrow,  there  is  no  subject  on  which  he  does 
more  thinking  than  the  future  of  his  children. 

The  workingman,  then,  has  decided  against 
the  high  school.  An  ignorant  decision  ?  Perhaps 
not  so  altogether  philosophical  and  fine-spun  as 
the  one  you,  intelligent  reader,  are  making  by 
the  warmth  of  your  fireside,  sunk  in  an  easy- 
chair,  secure  of  your  future,  and  dallying  with 
this  book  half  quizzically  as  with  a  subject  that 
arouses  curiosity,  but  not  your  vital  interest.  But 
he  has  experienced  the  hard  facts  of  life,  and 
knows  that  how  to  earn  a  living  and  earn  it  well 
is  the  paramount  question  which  must  be  settled 
before  love  and  happiness  and  beauty,  before  life 
itself  can  begin.  You  tell  him  that  if  his  child 
remains  in  school,  he  will  be  able  to  earn  more 
28 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

in  the  end  than  if  he  goes  at  once  to  work  and 
climbs  the  industrial  ladder  without  further  edu- 
cation. You  tell  him  that  his  boy  will  be  able  to 
turn  his  hand  to  many  jobs ;  that  he  will  have 
more  general  ability,  more  chances.  But  he 
knows  that  production  demands  men  who  can 
do  some  one  thing  skillfully.  He  sees  that  skill 
is  not  so  easily  mastered ;  and  he  fears  to  have 
his  boy  lose  time  which  should  be  devoted  to 
acquiring  dexterity  that  can  command  a  man's 
wages  for  him  when  he  is  a  man.  You  suggest, 
again,  that  if  the  child  stays  in  school,  he  will 
be  able  to  raise  himself  above  the  level  of  manual 
toil,  and  will  in  this  field  certainly  outstrip  the 
untutored  applicant  for  work.  Yet  perhaps  the 
rough-handed  laborer  will  know  how  commerce 
is  already  over-full  of  helpers,  and  how  at  the 
skirts  of  the  genteel  professions  trails  a  great 
army  of  unnecessary,  unsuccessful  men  who 
hover  ever  between  industry  and  gentility, 
crowded  from  the  latter  by  competition  and  shut 
from  the  other  by  inclination  and  unfitness. 

Why  shut  from  the  other  by  inclination  ?  Is 
not  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  classroom  in 
our  high  schools  anti-industrial  ?  Is  not  the  em- 
phasis ever  upon  intellectual  achievements  in 
the  realm  of  letters  and  art  and  abstract  science  ? 
29 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Does  not  the  butcher's  or  the  machinist's  boy 
seem  to  breathe  another  ether  here  than  in  his 
own  home  ?  What  use  has  the  school  world  for 
the  facts  of  his  father's  life  ?  What  use  has  his 
father's  life  for  the  facts  of  the  school  world  ? 
Use  enough,  if  he  saw  the  truth  !  But  he  rarely 
sees  it.  And  does  he  not  naturally  infer  some 
innate  difference  between  these  two  sections  of 
life,  and  also  the  superiority  of  the  school  world, 
with  its  beauty,  its  wealth  of  new  information, 
its  quick  interchange  of  thought  with  eager  fel- 
low students,  and  its  inspiration  from  sympa- 
thetic teachers  glad  to  foster  a  growing  taste  foi 
culture  ?  What  do  we  do  to  convince  pupils  that 
Shakespeare  is  as  much  in  place  on  a  tinsmith's 
table  as  on  a  jeweler's?  What  do  we  do  to  in- 
terest them  intelligently  in  the  pursuits  at  which 
one  half  of  them  must  spend  their  lives,  and,  as 
ex-President  Roosevelt  puts  it,  to  cure  them  of 
the  idea  that  to  earn  twelve  dollars  a  week  and 
call  it  a  "  salary  "  is  better  than  to  earn  twenty- 
five  dollars  and  call  it  "  wages  "  ? 

Manual  training  advocates  will  here  slip  be- 
tween the  lines  the  plea  that  their  departments 
inculcate  respect  for  labor,  and  that  they  offer 
the  practical  application  of  theoretical  knowledge 
for  which  we  so  loudly  clamor.  The  question  is, 
30 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

indeed,  of  great  interest  at  this  point  in  the  dis- 
cussion. The  manual  training  teacher  has  grasped 
a  great  psychological  truth  ;  he  stands  for  bal- 
ance, for  purposeful  use  of  the  finely  adjusted 
bodily  mechanism  with  which  we  are  endowed. 
There  is  a  bit  of  the  ancient  Greek  in  his  demo- 
cratic view  of  personality,  of  body  and  mind  as 
an  interacting  whole.  But  he  too  ranks  with  the 
"  generalists."  His  work  is  but  practice  work, 
designed  to  foster  an  all-round  facility  of  hand, 
important  as  a  means  and  fatal  as  an  end. 

When  manual  training  was  first  introduced 
into  high  schools,  its  strictly  developmental  func- 
tion in  the  curriculum  was  mistaken  for  practical 
trade  instruction  by  many  parents  in  a  class 
whose  children  had  not  hitherto  gone  to  high 
school,  and  a  large  increase  in  enrollments  fol- 
lowed. But  when  the  public  saw  that,  valuable  as 
the  new  experiment  was  and  is,  it  was  not  the 
threshold  to  industry,  that  an  apprenticeship  was 
still  imperative  before  wage-earning  could  begin, 
the  disproportionate  increase  in  school  attend- 
ance merged  into  the  normal  increase,  and  the 
situation  remained  almost  as  before.  Classes 
have,  indeed,  been  organized  in  many  schools 
which  "prove  not  only  developmental  but  of  im- 
mediate practical  service,  and  these  classes  have 
3i 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

held  many  a  child  in  school  who  would  otherwise 
have  gone  at  once  to  work.  In  this  regard,  girls 
have  fared  better  than  boys,  for  manual  training 
for  girls  has  invariably  taken  the  form  of  sew- 
ing, cooking,  or  millinery.  But  these  studies,  as 
well  as  sloyd,  electricity,  ironwork,  and  sometimes 
even  the  long-established  commercial  courses, 
count  little  in  the  school  credit  systems.  In  this 
forward  step  we  are  again  dragging  the  old  ball 
and  chain  of  wrong  emphasis.  For  while  learn- 
ing should  teach  us  to  bring  to  bear  upon  our  life 
work  "  the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the 
world,"  we  are  still  leading  too  many  of  our  child- 
ren away  from  their  life  work ;  leading  them  to 
suppose  that  it  is  really  unworthy,  by  putting  it 
in  a  secondary  position  in  our  courses  of  study. 

For  the  same  reason  that  so  few  children  enter 
the  high  school,  many  drop  out  at  the  end  of  the 
first  year.  The  boy,  especially,  finds  the  high 
school  course  too  often  unadapted  to  his  wants. 
In  the  first  place,  boys  are  outnumbered,  for  since 
the  economic  pressure  is  not  yet  so  great  upon 
girls,  they  stay  longer  in  school.  In  three  cases 
out  of  four,  also,  the  instructors  are  women. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  influence  of  women 
on  adolescents  is  strong  and  good,  but  the  exces- 
sive feminization,  too  often  seen  in  curricula 
32 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

framed  by  them  for  pupils,  the  majority  of  whom 
are  girls,  makes  the  boy  feel  awkward  and  out 
of  place  in  the  program.  Because  literature  is  so 
often  taught  from  a  feminine  point  of  view,  with 
which  the  decidedly  non-soulful,  normal  boy  is 
utterly  out  of  sympathy,  he  comes  to  the  errone- 
ous conclusion  "  that  it  is  all  rot  anyway,"  and 
misses  the  inspiration,  the  glimpse  into  a  world 
of  keener  beauty  and  the  future  fund  of  resource 
within  himself  that  a  manly  love  of  reading 
should  bestow.  He  becomes  restless  under  the 
routine  of  work ;  he  does  not  see  where  it  is 
tending ;  he  stops  studying,  and  his  school  at- 
tendance becomes  a  mere  wearisome  seat-filling. 
Or  perhaps  there  is  an  occasional  holy  infant 
who,  though  uninterested,  studies  his  lessons 
just  to  get  them,  for,  being  good,  he  does  as  he 
is  told  and  asks  no  questions.  Fortunately  this 
type  is  rare.  You  may  browbeat  girls  ad  libitum : 
not  all  girls,  but  girls  in  general.  They  are  of 
the  accommodating  sex.  Custom  and  heredity 
have  made  them  pliable.  But  the  boy  is  a  stiff 
sort  of  twig  and  hard  to  bend.  The  mill  may 
grind  on  ;  he  remains  obstinately  irreducible, 
and  quits  school  after  a  while  because  he  sees 
"  no  sense  in  it,"  and  longs  for  something  "worth 
while  "  on  which  to  lavish  his  young  energy. 
33 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

The  author  once  had  in  an  English  class  a 
splendid  sort  of  chap,  though  crude  as  yet.  One 
day  he  came  with  shining  eyes  to  tell  of  a  wonder- 
ful chance  to  earn  sixty  dollars  a  month  that  had 
just  been  offered  him,  and  that  looked  a  glitter- 
ing independence  to  a  boy  whose  father  had  never 
allowed  him  any  command  of  money.  Except  in 
wood-turning  where  he  led  his  class,  his  work 
took,  for  the  moment,  no  alluring  form.  He 
needed  schooling,  needed  it  badly;  but  I  found 
it  hard  to  answer  when  he  said  with  sudden  pene- 
tration, "  See  here,  I  know  I  'm  raw  and  green 
and  use  bad  grammar  off  and  on.  But  I  'm  not 
doing  any  good  here.  Maybe  it 's  my  fault,  but  I 
can't  seem  to  hitch  on,  and  all  I  learn  in  high 
school  won't  help  me  to  make  more  than  sixty  a 
month  when  I  begin.  It  's  all  right  for  Dodge 
and  Kelly  and  those  fellows  who  are  going  to 
college  or  into  the  law.  But  dad  can't  send  me 
to  college.  I've  got  to  earn  my  grub  right  off 
and  I  might  as  well  start  in."  Nothing  will  hold 
a  boy  when  independence  calls,  except  the  surety 
of  greater  profit  to  himself  or  a  strong  personal 
interest  in  his  work.  Both  were  supplied  to 
"Dodge  and  Kelly  "  by  their  careers.  They  could 
refer  present  dryness  to  the  future  for  illumina- 
tion. But  our  ordinary  boy  was  getting  all  the 
34 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

education  he  would  ever  have  and  naturally  de- 
manded that  it  be  worth  "more  than  sixty  a 
month."  It  is  needless  to  say  that  sixty  dollars 
a  month  is  an  exceptional  alternative  to  further 
schooling.  As  Dr.  Kingsbury's1  investigations 
in  Massachusetts  prove,  an  errand  or  office  boy's 
job  is  nearer  the  average.  But  whatever  the  bait, 
and  however  short-sighted  the  choice,  the  motive 
for  leaving  school  remains  the  same,  and  is 
equally  imperious. 

The  lack  of  practical  interest  in  high  school 
work  is  too  often  intensified  by  a  lack  of  vitality 
in  teaching,  from  which  the  college  preparatory 
student  suffers  as  much  as  the  boy  destined  for 
industry.  In  the  same  spirit  which  omits  practi- 
cal branches  from  the  curriculum,  the  instructor 
often  fails  to  make  constantly  the  connection 
between  what  is  taught  in  school  and  the  actual 
facts  of  the  children's  experience.  History  gets 
to  be  a  world  shut  in  between  the  covers  of  a 
book.  Physiology  and  hygiene  are  something  to 
recite  about  and  not  to  apply  to  the  ventilation 
of  one's  bedroom.  Mathematics  becomes  an  ab- 
stract juggling  with  figures.  Even  literature, 
that  hardest  of  subjects  to  kill,  falls  into  the  cate- 

1  Susan  Myra  Kingsbury,  of  Simmons  College,  investigator 
for  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial  Education. 

35 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

gory  of  things  to  be  learned  and  not  lived,  and, 
instead  of  opening  their  eyes  to  the  undreamt 
wonder  of  the  world,  succeeds  merely  in  giving 
children  a  positive  distaste  for  books.  Against 
this  petrifaction  of  school  work,  every  instructor 
rights.  Live  teachers  die  hard,  if  we  may  put  it 
so.  But  a  huge  machine,  such  as  the  ward  schools 
of  a  large  city,  or  the  numerous  departments  in 
a  high  school,  acquires  tremendous  momentum. 
The  wheels  once  started,  a  course  of  study  once 
drawn  up,  the  thing  moves  on  irresistibly,  flat- 
tening out  individual  method,  and  conforming 
all  to  the  preconceived  pattern.  And  still  this 
mechanization,  which  victimizes,  first  teachers, 
then  pupils,  is  necessary  in  the  administration 
of  large  scale  education.  System  we  must  have, 
only,  please  God !  let  us  not  magnify  the  system 
into  an  end,  a  something  valuable  in  itself  to 
which  our  pupils  can  be  sacrificed.  M.  Brizon 
has  astutely  remarked,  "It  is  convenient,  no 
doubt,  to  have  recourse  to  routine ;  but  the  school 
is  not  made  for  the  convenience  of  the  masters  ; 
it  is  made  for  the  best  development  of  the  vary- 
ing faculties  of  the  pupils."  Yet  when  the  class- 
room fills  five  or  six  times  a  day  with  thirty  new 
faces,  is  it  not  natural  that  after  draining  his 
energy  in  the  mad  attempt  to  be  a  hundred  and 

36 


THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

fifty  people,  to  understand  a  hundred  and  fifty 
needs  and  feelings,  to  lead  a  hundred  and  fifty 
lives,  the  master  will  some  day  fall  back  into  the 
arms  of  routine  which  makes  all  things  plain  and 
easy  ?  Will  he  not  some  day,  unable  to  keep  in 
touch  with  his  pupils,  begin  to  teach  the  course 
of  study  for  its  own  sake  ?  Will  he  not  begin  to 
show  signs  of  irritation  with  the  pupils  whom  it 
does  not  fit  ?  Will  he  not  call  them  dull  and  stu- 
pid, and  even  end  by  disregarding  them  entirely? 
And  will  not  the  children  who  come  from  his 
hand  be  clipped  and  trimmed  out  of  originality 
into  uniformity,  as  like  as  possible  to  the  Imagi- 
nary Pupil  for  whom  too  many  a  course  is  planned, 
and  who  has  no  more  actual  existence  than  the 
Economic  Man  of  the  old  economists  ? 

We  have  ridden  our  favorite  hobby  a  little 
aside  the  question,  but  not  so  far  that  a  straight 
bridle  path  will  not  bring  us  out  again  on  the 
main  track,  and  set  us  jogging  toward  the  old 
point  that  our  expensive  high  schools  are  "  class" 
schools  whose  pupils  are  drawn  largely  from  one 
class  of  society,  and  which  produce  solely  appli- 
cants for  that  class;  and  that  the  boasted  de- 
mocracy of  popular  education  has  evolved  a  sys- 
tem which  "prepares  for  everything  in  general 
and  nothing  in  particular/' 


IV 

A  SCHOOL  FOR   THE  PLAIN   MAN 

While  pedagogues  were  arguing  behind  closed 
doors  the  perennial  question  of  the  Humanities 
versus  the  Modernities,  the  facts  of  life,  which 
have  an  inveterate  habit  of  keeping  in  advance 
of  thought,  came  knocking  without  and  crying, 
"  In  God's  name,  open !  Dispute  no  more  whether 
air  or  water  is  most  necessary  to  our  children's 
life,  but  bethink  you  what  meat  you  will  set  be. 
fore  them,  for  they  are  sore  hungry  and  would 
eat ! "  The  facts  of  life  and  their  good  friend 
common  sense  demand  a  school  for  the  plain  man. 
Industry  no  longer  trains  its  workers ;  and  yet 
they  must  be  trained.  M.  Astier  and  his  col- 
leagues 1  have  struck  the  sensible  and  philosophi- 
cal note  with  French  directness  when  they  main- 
tain that  "  in  our  epoch  of  feverish  activity,  we 
cannot  leave  to  routine  the  task  of  regulating 
commercial  and  industrial  operations.  Science 
is  the  prime  factor  in  all  progress."  Industry 
needs  not  only  the  scientific  knowledge  of  its  great 
1  Astier  et  Cuminal,  L '  Enseignement  Technique. 

38 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

directors,  but  the  scientific,  understanding  spirit 
of  every  man  along  the  line. 

To  foster  this  spirit  is  the  duty  of  educational 
institutions  from  primer  grade  to  university.  The 
movement  toward  such  an  orientation  of  studies 
is  well  begun  in  our  colleges,  and  schools  of 
this,  that,  and  the  other  practical  branch  spring 
into  existence  in  every  state.  The  link  between 
theory  and  practice  should  be  drawn  even  closer. 
Many  of  the  lower  schools  also  must  grow  into 
laboratories  of  industry  where  skill  of  hand  and 
skill  of  mind  are  taught  and  our  young  folk  learn 
that  intelligence  and  daily  living  should  be  syn- 
onymous. Then  only  will  the  high  school  ideal 
be  fitted  to  the  demands  of  our  society.  Then 
only  shall  we  supply  to  the  world  what  the  world 
asks  of  us  —  a  skilled  worker.  To  beat  about  the 
bush  no  longer,  common  sense  demands  trade 
education. 

The  voices  which  stoutly  declared  that  the 
standard  of  scholarship  was  sure  to  fall  when 
manual  training  entered  school  curricula  now 
rise  again  in  lamentation.  Prophecy  is  an  uncer- 
tain role ;  and  an  advance  verdict  as  to  the  in- 
fluence of  trade  education  on  general  scholar- 
ship may  turn  out  as  wide  of  the  mark  as  the 
premature  fusillade  against  manual  training.  But 
39 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

the  writer  finds  it  natural  to  hope  that  a  salutary 
reaction  on  educational  methods  will  follow  the 
establishment  of  trade  high  schools. 

In  the  first  place,  the  dominance  of  the  college 
preparatory  ideal,  against  which  so  many  princi- 
pals are  now  struggling,  will  be  permanently 
broken.  In  academic  high  schools,  a  single  eye 
can  be  kept  upon  college  as  the  end  of  every 
course,  with  the  conceivable  result  of  a  far  more 
thorough  college  preparation  than  at  present. 
In  the  trade  school,  the  child  to  whom  college  is 
a  mere  disturbing  impossibility,  will  be  free  to 
study  what  he  needs.  Class  education,  you  say  ? 
One  sort  for  the  laborer ;  another  for  the  brain 
worker  ?  But  we  agreed  that  differentiation  was 
essential  to  democracy,  and  that  no  class  educa- 
tion could  be  so  disastrous  as  that  invidious 
species  which  now  masquerades  amongst  us  as 
"popular."  And  will  it  not  be  infinitely  fairer  to 
all  concerned  when  fewer  things  are  studied,  but 
are  studied  well  ?  When  each  child  gets  his  due 
instead  of  being  fed  an  indigestible  mixture  of 
what  is  good  for  each  ?  When  the  college  pre- 
paratory student  need  not  waste  time  on  sketchy 
courses  he  will  duplicate  later  in  detail  ?  When 
the  manual  worker  will  not  consume  costly  time 
stolen  from  his  trade,  in  mastering  branches  that 
40 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

belong  to  another  scheme  of  life  than  his  ?  And 
when  the  harassed  teacher  will  no  longer  be  dis- 
tracted by  the  necessity  of  basing  a  general  in- 
telligence course  on  college  entrance  require- 
ments, and  of  teaching  everything  superficially 
because  he  must  teach  enough  to  meet  at  some 
point  the  needs  of  every  part  of  his  mammoth, 
heterogeneous  class  ? 

Here  we  may  note  that  trade  schools  mean 
smaller  classes,  and  more  of  that  personal  rela- 
tion between  teacher  and  pupil  which  makes  for 
vividness,  originality,  and  inspiring  work,  and 
whose  absence  is  accountable  for  the  impersonal 
dryness  of  so  much  teaching.  The  Philoctetian 
howlings  of  academicians,  wounded  in  their  dry- 
as-dust  supremacy,  must  again  drop  into  silence. 

Each  argument  advanced  for  manual  training 
holds  in  the  case  of  industrial  training  with  three- 
fold force.  The  child  is  essentially  creative  and 
practical.  Theoretic  teaching  needs  illustration 
to  have  weight  with  him ;  and  he  needs  a  physi- 
cal outlet  for  his  ideas.  What  general  manual 
training  adds  to  the  curriculum  of  an  academic 
school,  trade  work  would  contribute  in  the  indus- 
trial school,  with  the  advantage  of  even  greater 
interest  and  vitality.  Even  academic  education 
will  emerge  from  an  alliance  with  trade  instruc- 
41 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

tion,  strengthened,  deepened,  and  dignified,  and 
will  but  come  more  fully  to  its  own. 

However  the  balance  of  power  among  scho- 
lastic principalities  may  settle  itself  after  the 
new  invasion,  the  world  at  large  will  reap  sub- 
stantial benefits  therefrom.  Obviously,  larger 
numbers  of  children  will  go  through  high  school, 
numbers  steadily  increasing  as  the  profitableness 
of  trade  education  becomes  manifest.  Reason 
would  prove  the  point  beyond  cavil  had  we  not 
French  experience  with  actual  vocational  schools 
to  fall  back  upon.1  In  1905,  the  number  of  sec- 
ondary schools  in  France  had  quadrupled  since 
the  recent  establishment  of  professional  educa- 
tion ;  the  number  of  pupils  had  quintupled.  This 
disproportional  increase  came  almost  entirely  in 
the  trade  courses,  which  were,  as  they  still  are,  so 
utterly  inadequate  to  accommodate  the  demand 
that  there  has  always  been  a  long  waiting-list. 
The  ratio  of  graduates  to  first  year  enrollment 
proved  correspondingly  larger  in  these  practical 
schools,  and  the  comparatively  high  percentage 
of  attendance  was  a  sign  of  the  favor  the  work 
found  in  the  eyes  of  children  and  parents. 

This  favor  is  principally  due  to  the  greater 
wage-earning  capacity  of  the  trade  school  grad- 

*  Rene  Leblanc,  IS  Enseignement  Professional  en  France. 
42 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

uate  as  compared  with  the  young  worker  who 
has  spent  the  same  number  of  years  in  a  shop. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that,  of  two  boys  who 
leave  the  primary  school  at  thirteen,  one  goes  at 
once  to  work  in  a  furniture  factory  and  begins  to 
earn  money  for  himself,  and  the  other  is  sent  for 
three  years  to  the  cabinetmakers'  school.  The 
young  apprentice  twits  his  comrade  over  the  lat- 
ter's  dependence,  while  he,  young  lordling  of  his 
franc  or  two  a  day,  has  money  to  spend.  After  a 
while,  the  other  boy  graduates  from  trade  school 
and  comes  to  work  in  the  same  shop  with  his 
friend.  At  first,  he  is  a  little  slow  and  wasteful, 
not  being  used  to  the  rush  of  competitive  pro- 
duction and  the  economies  of  business.  His  wages, 
in  the  beginning,  are  lower  than  those  of  the 
more  adroit  apprentice,  who  twits  him  further  on 
having  been  three  years  at  school  to  learn  a  trade 
which  he  cannot  practice  so  well  as  one  who  never 
had  a  day's  more  schooling  than  the  law  requires. 
But  at  the  end  of  a  year,  the  young  graduate  has 
caught  up  with  trade  conditions.  He  shows  a  re- 
markable intelligence  and  adaptability.  He  has 
ideas  for  this  and  that  bit  of  decoration.  A  fel- 
low workman  is  sick  and  it  develops  that  he  can 
take  the  place,  not  so  well  as  a  skilled  hand,  but 
far  better  than  the  average  apprentice.  He  is  val- 
43 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

uable  to  the  shop  and  forges  ahead,  till,  of  a  sud- 
den, the  once  scornful  friend  wakes  up  to  the 
fact  that  he  has  been  left  far  behind  in  the  race 
for  advancement,  and  that,  while  his  own  wages 
remain  at  much  the  same  level,  those  of  the  trade 
school  graduate  are  already  in  advance  and  show 
every  prospect  of  further  rise.  The  purchasing 
power  of  money  is  too  different  in  France  and 
America  to  make  actual  figures  illuminating,  but 
the  gist  of  many  tables  is  embodied  in  this  sup- 
positious instance.1 

The  superior  workmanship  betokened  by  great- 
er wage-earning  capacity  is  explained  by  compar- 
ing the  training  these  two  boys  received.  One 
was  started  and  kept  at  work  on  some  simple, 
easily  acquired  process,  which  he  will  go  on  per- 
forming for  the  rest  of  his  days.  The  other  has 
not  only  sharpened  his  wits  by  general  instruc- 
tion, but  studied  his  trade  in  all  its  bearings.  He 
learned  to  know  a  dozen  implements  instead  of 
one;  to  understand  a  dozen  operations.  He  fol- 
lowed the  product  from  its  inception  in  the  mind 
of  the  designer  to  its  completion  and  transfer  to 
the  school  salesroom.  He  designed  himself  almost 
everything  which  came  from  his  hand,  and  took 

1  For  items  see  Pierre  Brizon,  Vapprentissage  and  the  re- 
ports of  the  French  Minister  of  Education. 

44 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

that  pride  in  the  material  expression  of  his  own 
ideas  that  leads  more  surely  than  any  other  mo- 
tive to  care  and  finish.  Making  a  piece  of  furni- 
ture is  more  to  him  than  a  boresome  stint  to  be 
done  before  coveted  francs  can  be  acquired.  He 
has  a  personal,  intelligent  interest  in  his  task. 
He  can  take  hold  of  a  new  process  with  ready 
comprehension,  and,  when  thrown  out  of  work 
in  one  branch  of  the  trade,  he  can  fall  back  upon 
another.  He  is  independent  and  destined  to  rise 
in  his  profession,  just  as  surely  as  the  average 
untrained  worker  is  nailed  to  his  first,  poorly  paid 
job,  and  so  swells  the  class  of  the  permanently 
unskilled  who  crowd  the  market  and  lower  wages 
in  good  times,  and  in  seasons  of  depression  form 
that  menacing,  hungering  army  of  the  unem- 
ployed. 

Perhaps  French  workers  may  not  have  per- 
ceived all  this  ;  but  they  have  seen  beyond  a 
doubt  that,  because  he  can  produce  at  once  upon 
entering  the  shop,  it  is  easy  for  the  trade  school 
graduate  to  get  a  job.  No  time  need  be  wasted 
in  breaking  him  in,  for,  in  spite  of  his  faults,  he 
is  not  raw;  and  though  the  verdict  of  employers 
is  far  from  unanimous  in  all  details,  the  consen- 
sus of  opinion  is  that,  if  the  trade  school  gradu- 
ate adapts  himself  to  actual  industrial  conditions, 
45 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

he  makes  up  for  early  lack  of  dexterity  and,  in 
the  end,  far  outstrips  all  his  competitors.  Ger- 
man opinion  has  already  crystallized  into  legisla- 
tion which  renders  industrial  training  obligatory, 
and  in  our  own  country  many  a  scattering  proof 
of  the  employer's  recognition  of  its  value  is  given 
by  half-time  classes  for  apprentices. 

Of  course  not  every  trade  school  graduate 
achieves  complete  success,  for  there  is  no  magic 
in  industrial  training  that  can  develop  inferior 
endowments  to  a  high  level  of  efficiency.  Hered- 
ity may  be  molded,  but  not  eradicated.  Yet  the 
child  of  mean  ability  may  perhaps  receive  from 
such  education  the  greatest  proportional  benefit. 
As  mental  defectives  are  awakened  through  con- 
crete manual  exercises,  so  the  pupil  of  limited 
capacity  may  be  roused  by  practical  instruction 
to  make  the  most  of  himself,  and  thus  escape  the 
failure  that  awaits  undisciplined  mediocrity. 

Trade  education  is  not  a  paying  investment  for 
the  individual  only.  "In  the  international  struggle 
for  commercial  supremacy  the  balance  must  tip 
in  favor  of  the  land  whose  workers  are  most  skill- 
ful and  intelligent."  With  our  toilers  lies  the  stan- 
dard of  national  handicraft.  It  lies  with  them  to 
support  this  standard  against  foreign  labor  at 
home  and  abroad.  Not  all  the  tariff  bulwarks  in 

46 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

the  world  can  forever  protect  us  against  the  en- 
croachments of  superior  production.  Dam  the 
currents  of  industry  as  we  will,  they  set  inevitably 
toward  quality.  Germany  has  stolen  the  French 
market  out  of  the  very  lap  of  protection.  How 
gloriously  "  fit "  must  a  nation  be  which  can  look 
forward  to  free  trade,  as  many  a  wise  judge  of 
things  maintains  America  is  doing  !  How  sinewy 
in  every  limb,  firm  knit  for  the  race,  steady-eyed, 
bold-hearted,  with  no  load  of  incompetence  upon 
her  shoulders !  Such  a  load,  alas  !  we  shall  carry 
so  long  as  the  sins  of  Europe  are  visited  upon  us 
by  unchecked  immigration  and  so  long  as  we  grind 
men  and  women  to  a  worse  semblance  of  things 
unhuman  in  our  own  factories,  and  make  no  effort 
to  counteract  by  schooling  the  benumbing  effects 
of  unenlightened  toil. 

No  little  contribution  toward  our  national  pros- 
perity will  be  that  content  with  manual  labor 
which  should  come  from  viewing  it  in  school  as 
a  worthy  end  of  intellectual  study.  Much  slipshod 
service  is  now  rendered  by  persons  who  look  upon 
manual  work  as  a  mere  stepping-stone  to  some- 
thing else,  or  as  a  makeshift  for  those  who  fail  of 
rising  higher.  Woman's  temporizing  position  in 
industry  half  explains  her  lower  wages,  and  many 
a  man  fails  of  success  because  he  gives  inferior 
47 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

execution  to  what  he  deems  inferior  work.  Man- 
ual labor  is  not  a  coil  to  be  shuffled  off  at  the  first 
opportunity,  but  something  that  will  remain  with 
us  always  until  we  cease  to  need  our  bodies  for 
other  than  vegetative  purposes  and  become,  as 
some  pessimistic  magazine  scribbler  has  predicted, 
a  degenerate  human  barnacle  on  the  machinery 
by  which  we  live.  Rather  than  this,  let  us  set  all 
our  writers  plowing ;  our  Rothschilds  and  Car- 
negies  to  hoeing  beans  ;  and  put  fire  to  offices, 
libraries,  schools,  and  the  whole  paraphernalia  of 
finance  and  culture.  There  will  always  be  work 
for  hands  to  do,  and  the  public  welfare  demands 
that  the  men  who  perform  it  be  as  manful  as  any^ 
other.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  we  can  afford  to  have 
no  contemptuous  slovens. 

To  usher  the  young  person  into  active  life, 
equipped  with  the  wherewithal  to  live,  concerns 
not  merely  the  economic  efficiency  of  our  workers; 
not  merely  the  quality  of  production ;  not  merely 
our  national  supremacy  in  trade.  It  concerns  the 
moral  integrity  of  our  people.  Whenever  the  cor- 
ner stone  of  a  new  reform  school  is  laid,  the  gods 
must  ask  each  other  laughingly,  "  How  many  more 
Elmiras  will  it  take  to  show  these  mortals  that 
one  trade  school  is  worth  six  reformatories  ? " 
Human  interest  is  a  crab  which,  crawling  back- 
48 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

ward,  makes  many  a  false  start  before  it  gains  its 
end.  Just  now,  it  has  taken  a  long  look  at  crime, 
seen  something  very  real  and  true  about  its  causes, 
and,  whirling  round  back  end  toward  the  goal  of 
righteousness,  has  begun  plowing  away  with  ter- 
rific kickings  and  much  flying-off  of  industrial  sand 
and  pebbles.  But  where  is  the  queer  fish  coming 
out  ?  At  the  reformation  of  an  ever-recruited  band 
of  criminals  !  When  a  man  has  sinned,  we  see 
clearly  the  whys  and  wherefores ;  see  that  most 
men  fall  into  crime  because  they  cannot  make  an 
honest  living ; x  resolve  to  teach  the  poor  souls  a 
trade;  hurry  them  off  to  an  Elmira  in  order  to  do 
it,  and  send  them  forth  in  seventy-four  cases  out 
of  a  hundred,  completely  reformed,  with  habits  of 
application  and  a  steady  job.  "A  fine  work!" 
says  humanity;  "a  noble,  inspiring  work!"  A 
noble  work  it  is,  and  its  best  results  will  have  been 
attained  when  the  public  has  the  genius  —  or 
common  sense  —  to  infer:  if  lack  of  a  trade,  if 
distaste  for  work,  if  habits  of  shiftlessness,  bring 
a  man  to  crime,  why  not  teach  a  trade,  why  not 
give  love  for  work,  why  not  inculcate  industry 
before  the  man  becomes  a  criminal,  and  there- 
by save  him  and  society  the  cost  of  sin  ?    The 

1  Only  two  per  cent  of  criminals  in  Massachusetts  prisons  have 
a  trade. 

49 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

criminal  is  a  misfit.  Alter  him  if  you  conveniently 
can,  but  cut  out  no  more  men  on  that  pattern. 
Nay ;  alter  the  pattern,  if  you  must  let  the  misfits 
go.  The  still  unspoiled  stuff  of  humanity  is  your 
paramount  concern.  Leave  over  patching  and 
darning  ragged  individuals,  and  bethink  you  how 
you  will  save  the  whole  ones  from  tatters.  To  keep 
the  normal  individual  normal,  this  is  the  problem 
of  the  social  worker. 

"Everything,"  a  witty  lady  once  remarked, 
—  "  everything  is  done  for  ragamuffins,  but  my 
ordinary  little  boy  has  to  struggle  along  as  best 
he  can."  When  we  have  learned  to  do  for  the 
ordinarily  good  and  bright  boy  what  we  do,  too 
late,  for  truant  Jim  and  pilfering  Joe,  we  shall 
find  more  than  one  probation  officer  drawing 
better  pay  at  another  job.  The  child  now  comes 
out  of  school  at  a  critical  age.  Child  labor  laws 
may,  at  first,  keep  him  out  of  work,  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  parents,  coupled  with  lack  of 
interest  in  any  definite  occupation,  may  lead  him 
to  idle  away  his  most  formative  years.  His  youth1 
condemns  him  at  best  to  juvenile  pursuits  where 
employment  is  unsteady  and  the  ever-shifting 
environment  conduces  to  anything  but  applica- 

1  Boys  are  not  wanted  in  skilled  industries  till  they  are  six- 
teen. Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial  Training. 

50 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

tion  and  firmness  of  character.  If  he  lives  in 
the  city,  he  is  subject  to  a  thousand  rapidly 
multiplying  temptations.  He  is  released  from 
the  discipline  of  the  school  and  at  the  same  time 
begins  to  have  less  respect  for  home  restraints. 
Parents  assume  a  different  attitude  toward  him 
when  he  becomes  a  bread-winner.  He  has  prac- 
tically no  guidance,  and  the  large  increase  in  re- 
cent years  in  child  criminality  proves  that  he  has 
often  fallen  a  victim  to  his  adventurous  inex- 
perience. 

The  case  against  child  labor  is  too  long  and 
too  well  understood  to  bear  repeating.  Every 
one  knows  how  much  more  heavily  the  strain  of 
overwork  tells  upon  children  than  upon  adults. 
All  need  repose  to  repair  waste  tissue  and  expel 
the  poison  of  fatigue.  But  the  child  must  not 
only  repair  :  he  must  build  new  tissue.  No  won- 
der that  the  growing  boy  or  girl,  confined  for  a 
long,  hard  day  in  a  factory,  falls  speedily  a  prey 
to  nervous  and  gastric  troubles.  No  wonder  his 
growth  and  intelligence  are  stunted,  for  the  food 
which  he  consumes,  the  energy  which  generates 
within  him,  must  go  into  work  and  systemic  re- 
pairs, instead  of  into  building  new  muscle  and 
brain  cells.  In  spite  of  all  our  knowledge  and 
conviction,  however,  child  labor  laws  fail  of  en- 
5i 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

forcement  for  lack  of  complementary  measures. 
But  compulsory  education,  especially  if  extended 
beyond  the  grades,  will  never  be  effective  until 
parents  recognize  that  going  to  school  is  more 
profitable  than  immediate  work.  Until  that  time 
will  they  evade  the  law;  and  until  children 
can  actually  gain  increased  wage-earning  capa- 
city in  the  school,  it  will  be  an  open  question 
whether  we  can  claim  the  right  of  compelling 
their  attendance.  How  much  more  must  this  be 
true  if  school  unfits  them  for  their  proper  task! 
The  social  advantages  of  sojourn  in  the  trade 
school  are  not  merely  negative.  Watch  a  room- 
ful of  children  engaged  in  some  practical  work. 
How  bright  and  eager  they  are!  They  are  having 
a  good  time,  as  children  have  a  right  to  do,  even 
in  school.  The  pleasure  which  children  take  in 
the  practical  part  of  their  work  spills  over  onto 
the  rest  of  the  course.  They  see  the  "hang  of 
things"  better.  Their  mathematics,  drawing,  and 
history  have  an  obvious  use  —  also  less  obvious 
ones  of  which  they  do  not  dream,  but  which  func- 
tion quietly  and  surely.  Unconsciously  during 
the  years  while  the  child  is  learning  his  trade, 
he  is  developing  inner  resources  of  culture.  He 
gets  into  his  mind  something  to  fill  it  in  leisure 
moments,  something  to  think  about.  Perhaps  he 
52 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

learns  in  English  class  to  love  reading,  a  dura- 
ble treasure  that  will  last  his  lifetime.  Not  his 
the  helpless,  spoiled-baby  type  of  mind  which 
waits  blankly  to  be  entertained.  He  can  amuse 
himself,  and  needs  no  tawdry  picture  show  or 
corner  saloon  for  recreation.  His  life  is  no  longer 
flat  and  monotonous.  His  work  is  no  longer 
deadening.  He  knows  his  machine  as  well  as  his 
work.  He  knows  his  materials,  and  as  he  toils 
mechanically,  perhaps  his  mind  follows  them 
back  to  the  mine  or  the  jungles  of  the  Amazon. 
Lives  have  been  spent  to  get  them ;  life  is  spent 
to  shape  them.  And  when  the  factory  has  done 
with  them,  they  will  go  here  and  there  over 
the  world,  to  pay  life  back  for  what  they  cost. 
He  understands  the  whole  process  of  manufac- 
ture in  his  shop,  and  labors,  not  as  a  blind  pis- 
ton in  the  engine,  but  as  a  co-worker  toward  an 
intelligible  end.  Not  mere  dead  wood  and  iron, 
but  something  live  and  real  and  interesting  is 
passing  through  his  hands  ;  something  stimulat- 
ing withal.  He  is  master  of  his  tool,  master  of 
the  iron  hand ;  and  work  becomes  exhilarating. 
All  of  which  is  most  fantastic,  says  the  hard- 
head. Will  the  fellow  make  better  nails  for  such 
untimely  ruminations?  Certainly  no  worse  ones; 
the  business  of  nail-making  leaving  a  great  deal 
53 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

of  room  for  thought,  room  better  filled  with  fan- 
tasy than  with  mere  echoes  of  hammering. 

Place  in  our  times  for  fantasy  there  surely  is; 
place  for  what  is  better  and  deeper  —  imagina- 
tion. There  is,  indeed,  something  ill-nourished 
in  the  aspect  of  modern  life,  an  insipidity,  a  mo- 
notony of  design,  a  thinness  of  texture  in  the 
tapestry  which  bespeaks  weavers  of  meager  soul. 
The  richness  of  perception,  the  spontaneous  joy 
in  nature,  the  freshness  of  mind  and  heart,  the 
bubbling,  blossoming  fullness  of  life  wrought  into 
the  nai've  scenes  of  an  antique  arras  across  which 
the  Lady,  the  Lion,  and  the  Unicorn  move  nobly 
and  gayly  through  meadows  full  of  stiffly  grow- 
ing flowers  and  wee  frisking  animals ;  the  boun- 
tiful heaping-up  of  beauty  in  the  wreathed  frames 
of  fruit  and  blossom  which  encircle  the  madon- 
nas of  Delia  Robbia ;  the  splendid  lavishness  of 
thought  displayed  in  the  tracery  of  a  slim  sword 
hilt  from  old  Florence,  — where  does  this  find  a 
counterpart  among  the  products  of  our  trades- 
people ? 

Of  course  a  great  deal  of  sentimental  whimper- 
ing about  the  "  good  old  times  "  has  been  done 
by  pseudo-historical  folk.  Even  a  sturdy  spirit 
like  William  Morris  fell  to  dreaming  over  a  golden 
age  of  England  which  was,  in  reality,  leaden 
54 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

enough.  But  all  these  plaints  contain  a  kernel  of 
justice.  In  the  study  of  past  ages,  we  look  upon 
the  oases  and  reclaimed  land  of  character.  That 
certain  tracts  were  once  desert  is  not  the  terrible 
thing,  but  that  a  tract,  once  fertile,  should  fall  de- 
sert again.  And  in  the  light  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance ;  indeed,  to  go  no  further  back  than  our 
own  day,  in  the  light  of  the  greater  "  resource- 
fulness "  of  continental  as  compared  with  Ameri- 
can environments,  our  daily  life  and  all  its  ad- 
juncts smack  dull  and  flat.  The  toiler  must  needs 
season  his  existence  with  the  acrid  vinegar  of 
dissipation,  lurid  theatres,  and  yellow  journal- 
ism. We  sadly  need  to  dream  a  bit  at  our  work ; 
to  vivify  our  common  round.  Nowadays,  in  every 
circle,  we  live  in  low  relief.  From  Singapore  to 
Paris,  we  wear  the  same  cut  of  clothes,  the  same 
cut  of  thoughts.  Ideas  flatten  themselves  out 
thin  as  they  diffuse  over  the  globe.  Convictions 
lose  their  depth  and  crispness.  Even  progressive 
Professor  Royce,  of  Harvard,  bewails  the  pas- 
sing of  provincialism  with  the  rich  and  stimulat- 
ing variety  of  mind  and  manners  it  insures.  Uni- 
formity, the  world-old  bugbear,  has  stepped  out 
of  the  cosmic  closet  to  rattle  its  dry  bones 
amongst  us,  and  the  whirring  of  factories  is  but 
music  for  its  dancing. 

55 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Against  the  leveling  and  numbing  influence  of 
industry,  at  least,  the  trade  school  would  fight. 
Among  men  whose  surroundings  have  stolen  from 
them  the  right  to  even  common  thoughts,  the 
trade  school  would  work  for  a  vast  spiritual  en- 
richment. In  relation  to  their  work,  this  deepen- 
ing of  experience  would  be  greatest.  Though 
trade  instruction  could  not  break  down  the  thick 
walls  of  specialization,  could  not  bring  the  man 
into  closer  physical  relation  to  the  finished  pro- 
duct of  his  toil,  it  could  tie  him  to  it  by  a  firm 
bond  of  understanding.  It  would  open  up  to  him 
a  world  of  thought  where  he  dreamed  no  thought 
existed.  It  would  interest  him  in  a  world  of  homely 
things  which  now  he  deems  unworthy  of  his  inter- 
est, in  stocks  and  stones  and  bars  of  steel.  And  it 
would  teach  him  to  express  himself  in  these  ma- 
terials of  industry,  putting  into  them  the  fancy,  the 
feeling,  the  loving  care  which  would  make  our 
articles  of  commerce  justify  their  etymology  by 
being  truly  things  of  beauty,  "bits  of  art." 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

The  great  question  mark  with  which  to-day  punc- 
tuates many  an  ancient  usage  is  largest  and 
blackest  after  the  word  woman.  "The  Wo- 
man Problem,"  "The  Family,"  "The  Economic 
Dependence  of  Woman  "  are  expressions  which 
stand  daily  in  the  press,  which  fall  daily  from  the 
lips  of  preachers  and  lecturers ;  and  the  increasing 
urgency  of  the  cry,  "  Votes  for  Women,"  proves 
that  some  readjustment  is  necessary  if  balance 
amid  present  unrest  is  to  be  preserved. 

Discussion  of  the  woman  question  rages  hottest 
about  the  point  which  links  it  to  our  subject  of 
trade  education.  What  the  woman's  rights  advo- 
cate calls  the  economic  dependence  of  female  on 
male,  or,  in  simple  terms,  the  fact  that  the  aver- 
age girl  must  marry  to  make  a  living,  is  said  to 
have  caused  the  age-long  subjection  of  woman  to 
man.  Just  as  the  monopolist  employer  can  defi- 
nitely fix  living  conditions  for  the  workers  in  his 
trade,  so  have  men,  since  the  beginning  of  time, 
ordered  matrimony  and  the  life  of  woman  after 
57 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

their  own  liking.  To  keep  women  docile  in  their 
semi-slavery,  their  development  as  individuals  has 
been  subintentionally  retarded  by  their  masters. 
Now,  however,  that  education  has  penetrated  the 
feminine  ranks,  discontent  breaks  forth.  The  his- 
tory of  all  slave  rebellions  repeats  itself.  Women 
have  come  into  greater  knowledge  and  are  de- 
manding freedom.  Against  this  wall  between  wo- 
man and  freedom,  the  efforts  of  reformers  bat- 
ter with  deadliest  energy.  To  hang  no  longer  on 
a  future  husband  for  a  livelihood  has  seemed  to 
the  harassed  and  downtrodden  female  the  open 
sesame  to  self-respect  and  liberty.  But  economic 
dependence  of  some  sort  she  can  never  escape. 
Every  one,  whether  man  or  woman,  is  econ- 
omically dependent,  —  on  an  employer,  on  a  cor- 
poration, on  consumers,  or  on  the  general  public. 
The  real  point  of  difficulty  is  that  in  woman's 
legitimate  trade,  progress  has  been  barred.  The 
homemaker,  housekeeper,  and  mother  often  lose 
touch  with  the  currents  of  contemporary  life  and 
fail  completely  of  being  "  human  beings "  be- 
cause all  their  effort  and  time  are  consumed  in 
laboriously  performing  the  operations  of  their 
trade  in  the  same  unsystematic,  wasteful  manner 
in  use  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Because  of  this  fail- 
ure of  the  household  to  keep  pace  with  general 
58 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

industrial  and  social  development,  women  have 
begun  to  find  it  too  restrictive.  They  recognize 
that  they  are  being  cut  off  from  fullness  of  ex- 
perience by  so-called  home  duties,  and  are  refus- 
ing, in  many  cases,  to  enter  an  unprogressive 
employment  whose  ante-diluvian  methods  of 
work  kill  personality  and  efficiency  at  once. 

Of  course  the  question  is  infinitely  more  com- 
plicated than  the  above  statement  would  imply, 
just  as  life  is  deeper  than  the  outline  drawings 
whereby  we  explain  its  forms.  A  psychological 
factor  has  helped  to  keep  housekeeping  a  rudi- 
mentary social  organ,  and  to  prevent  woman 
from  escaping  out  of  this  atrophying  business 
into  any  other.  Nature  combined  with  the  sel- 
fishness of  men  in  this  regard.  It  is  natural  for 
a  woman  to  be  a  mother,  and  she  is  willing  to 
make  a  great  many  sacrifices  to  secure  this  end. 
But  when  at  last  she  awakened  to  a  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  her  sacrifices  were  unfitting  her 
for  motherhood ;  when  she  saw  that  by  remain- 
ing a  household  slave,  chained  forever  to  the  un- 
skilled work  of  a  slave,  she  was  thereby  sacrific- 
ing her  children  as  well  as  herself,  then  woman 
felt  no  longer  her  previous  satisfaction  in  moth- 
erhood at  all  costs.  She  began  to  remember,  like 
Ibsen's  Nora,  that  first  of  all  she  was  a  human 
59 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

being  with  the  right  and  the  duty  of  life.  She  per- 
ceived that  to  be  fully  human  preceded  all  func- 
tions, however  proper,  which  belong  to  a  human 
being.  "This  business  of  motherhood  can  wait 
till  I  am  fit  for  it,"  she  thought.  "First,  I  must 
breathe  and  move  and  think  as  becomes  a  woman 
and  not  a  drudge.  Drudge  in  mind  and  body? 
Drudge  and  mother?  The  terms  are  mutually 
exclusive  !  I  will  set  about  escaping  drudgery." 

Set  about  it  she  has  and  in  deadly  earnest. 
She  has  gone  to  work  in  industry  where  she  ex- 
pects to  be  treated  as  a  twentieth-century  indi- 
vidual. The  domestic  servant  is  withdrawing 
her  protection  against  kitchen  work.  Woman 
forms  trade  unions  and  battles  manfully  for 
justice.  She  organizes  women's  clubs.  She  agi- 
tates for  the  ballot. 

Not  all  of  her  methods  are  so  praiseworthy.  She 
escapes  marital  obligations  by  divorce.  She  avoids 
bearing  children.  She  avoids  marriage  altogether, 
or,  once  married,  manages  her  home  so  poorly 
that  it  might  as  well  not  exist :  witness  the  mere 
fact  that  in  New  York  City  the  largest  percent- 
age of  undernourished  school-children  come  from 
moderately  well-to-do  families1 ;  and  witness  also 
the  number  of  incorrigible  children  voluntarily 
1  Investigation  by  the  Board  of  Health,  1907. 
60 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

surrendered  to  our  juvenile  courts  by  respectable 
parents. 

Thus  the  lack  of  progressive  intelligence  in 
homekeeping  has  had  the  twofold  result  of  driv- 
ing the  woman  out  of  the  home  in  protest  against 
its  narrowness,  and  of  frequently  making  the 
home  and  the  family  institution,  as  we  know  it,  a 
failure.  But  if,  as  we  hear  nowadays  ad  nauseam, 
the  family  is  the  essential  social  unit ;  then  it  is 
not  against  marriage,  not  against  that  economic 
dependence  of  women  which  has  been  so  cruelly 
exploited,  that  the  fundamental  reformer  must 
struggle.  Family  life  needs  modernization.  The 
present  industrial  employment  and  the  contin- 
ued unmarried  state  of  so  many  women  may  be 
viewed  as  an  unorganized  strike  against  the  injur- 
ious labor  conditions  in  their  proper  trade.  It  is  a 
necessary  protest  against  wrong  —  but,  a  tem- 
porary condition  which  will  pass  away  when  right 
is  once  established. 

The  integrity  of  the  family  depends,  first, 
upon  modifying  the  form  of  the  institution  to 
allow  woman  human  freedom,  and,  second,  upon 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  family  life  is  a  fit 
scene  for  the  play  of  intelligence.  Woman's  edu- 
cation should  be  designed  "  not  to  lead  her  per- 
manently away  from  the  home,  but  to  teach  her 
61 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

how  to  bring  the  best  from  the  outside  world 
into  the  home."  The  first  step  is  the  mechan- 
ical one  —  to  bring  homekeeping  methods  up  to 
date,  and  so  leave  the  mother  a  little  leisure  for 
life  contacts. 

Here  is  the  mission  of  the  domestic  science 
courses  for  girls.  Housework  need  be  drudgery 
no  longer  when  intelligence  and  system  are  in- 
troduced into  it.  The  application  of  scientific 
study  to  domestic  economy  may  perhaps  do  for 
the  whole  industry  the  same  thing  which  science 
has  done  for  every  other  line  of  modern  business. 
Perhaps  much  of  the  purely  mechanical  work  will 
be  taken  over  by  machinery  or  by  special  agen- 
cies. "Where  one  woman  now  uses  a  potato-parer, 
meat-grinder,  bread-maker,  biscuit-ringer,  auto- 
matic cleaner,  dish-washer  or  washing-machine, 
instead  of  the  simple  knives,  choppers,  bread- 
boards, irons,  brooms,  pans,  washboards,  and 
human  hands  of  our  forefathers,  everyhousehold 
will  boast  these  conveniences  and  many  another." 
Perhaps  we  may  come  to  the  conclusion  that  for 
a  woman  in  every  kitchen  in  every  dwelling  in 
every  block  in  a  city  street  to  spend  the  same 
hour  performing  an  operation,  which  one  of  them 
could  perform  for  the  whole  block  by  means  of 
a  simple  machine,  is  an  unwarrantable  waste  of 
62 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

time,  strength,  and  mentality.  The  thought  of  a 
dozen  women  steaming  and  stewing  over  a  dozen 
dinners  which  could,  in  many  respects,  be  better 
cooked  by  one  alone,  may  drive  us  to  cooperative 
housekeeping  of  some  hitherto  unheard-of  kind. 
One  hesitates  to  predict  what  the  future  will 
bring  forth  in  a  field  so  hedged  about  with  thorny 
prejudice  and  with  real  difficulties.  But  that 
some  simplification  of  housework  must  take  place 
is  so  certain  that  the  particular  form  may  safely 
be  left  for  the  specialist  to  discover. 

Mere  simplification  is  not  enough :  we  must 
persuade  woman  that  housekeeping  is  interest- 
ing. Women  have  been  trying  to  escape  from 
housework  because  they  see  in  it  no  scope  for  the 
imagination.  When  the  drudgery  is  obsolete  and 
housekeeping  is  recognized  and  taught  as  a 
science,  the  four  walls  of  a  home  will  no  longer 
be  a  prison  for  the  ambitious  wife,  but  a  labor- 
atory to  which  she  brings  for  testing  all  the  most 
progressive  thought  of  the  world. 

It  is  not  in  the  sphere  of  domestic  economy 
alone  that  the  trained  woman  will  find  room  for 
deepest  study.  The  education  of  her  children  can 
much  less  afford  to  be  haphazard  than  the  order- 
ing of  her  kitchen.  The  illuminating  distinction 
between  efficiency  and  passive  goodness  is  no- 

63 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

where  better  shown  than  among  mothers.  How 
many  little  monsters  grow  up  under  the  care  of 
merely  "good  women"!  How  many  weaklings! 
How  many  stunted  natures  !  When  Hamlet  asks 
the  prying  emissaries  of  his  uncle  to  play  upon 
a  recorder,  Guildenstern  replies,  "  Believe  me, 
I  cannot.  I  know  no  touch  of  it,  my  lord.  I  have 
not  the  skill." 

Then  Hamlet :  "Why,  look  you  now,  how  un- 
worthy a  thing  you  make  of  me  !  You  would 
play  upon  me,  you  would  seem  to  know  my  stops, 
you  would  pluck  out  the  heart  of  my  mystery, 
you  would  sound  me  from  my  lowest  note  to  the 
top  of  my  compass ;  and  there  is  much  music, 
excellent  voice,  in  this  little  organ,  yet  cannot 
you  make  it  speak !  'Sblood !  do  you  think  that 
I  am  easier  to  be  played  on  than  a  pipe  ? " 

No  one  would  dream  of  trying  so  simple  a 
thing  as  piano  playing  without  practice,  but  to 
nourish  costly  human  bodies,  to  build  a  precious 
human  life  —  for  this,  instinct  must  suffice.  Mo- 
ther love  may  be  omnipotent  in  romantic  fiction, 
but  it  will  never  tell  the  ignorant  woman  to  scald 
her  baby's  milk  bottle  unless  she  knows  the  dan- 
gers of  unscalded  bottles ;  and  all  the  fondness 
in  the  world,  and  even  all  the  old-fashioned  skill 
at  making  individual  dishes,  will  not  tell  her  how 

64 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

to  set  a  nourishing  meal  before  her  children  un- 
less she  knows  something  of  the  ingredients  of 
food  and  the  chemical  needs  of  the  body.  If  a 
teacher  must  study  for  years  to  instruct  the  child 
an  hour  a  day  in  some  limited  subject,  how  much 
more  careful  training  must  the  person  require 
who  is  to  control  the  child  during  its  earliest  and 
most  formative  years,  give  it  character,  and  mold 
its  whole  attitude  toward  life?  The  realms  of 
psychology,  philosophy,  history,  literature,  biol- 
ogy, and  hygiene  must  be  exhausted  to  give  the 
growing  child  his  due.  No  mere  grown-up  know- 
ledge of  these  subjects  will  suffice.  The  princi- 
ples of  child  growth  and  of  child  pyschology 
must  be  conned  by  the  mother  no  less  carefully 
than  by  the  teacher.  She  must  know  the  mater- 
ial with  which  she  works ;  know  its  laws.  She 
must  be  an  expert,  for  no  race  was  ever  greater 
than  its  mothers. 

New  York  City  has  at  length  discovered  that 
more  than  love  is  needed  in  rearing  children, 
and  has  not  only  instituted  courses  for  young 
mothers,  but  sends  a  nurse  into  tenement  houses, 
where  a  new  baby  has  come,  to  instruct  the 
mother  by  word  and  example  as  to  its  proper 
care.  Would  it  not  save  public  expense  as  well 
as  babies  to  give  this  training  earlier  and  to  every 
65 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

woman  ?  I  know  it  is  the  practice  in  some  circles 
to  scoff  at  mothers'  classes  and  mothers'  clubs. 
Like  alchemists  of  old  before  science  reached  a 
solid  basis,  many  members  of  mothers'  clubs  try 
not  a  few  ludicrous  and  fantastic  experiments. 
But  the  greenness  of  their  wisdom  is  not  the  im- 
portant thing.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign  that  they  have 
begun  to  think  about  the  question  at  all. 

You  mother  who  never  punished  your  child 
unjustly  in  anger  and  so  undermined  his  respect 
for  your  judgment  and  authority  —  I  do  not  write 
for  you.  You  other  mother  who  never  humored 
the  baby  at  your  breast  and  lost  him  forever,  or 
during  years  of  bitter  struggle,  that  great  gift 
of  self-control,  you  too  have,  perhaps,  been  in- 
telligent without  set  instruction  in  the  mysteries 
of  human  growth.  But  how  many  of  us  are  in- 
telligent ?  Do  not  think  of  yourself,  O  reader 
who  were  born  wise!  but  of  Mrs.  X,  who  has 
just  left  the  room,  and  who,  we  all  know,  was 
born  foolish  and  yet  accepts  with  easy-going 
complacency  the  responsibility  of  children  up  to 
any  number  the  "  Lord  may  provide." 

Are  the  domestic  science  and  motherhood 
courses  the  only  trade  instruction  desirable  for 
girls  ?  What  will  be  the  effect  on  them  of  busi- 
ness and  industrial  training  ?  Will  this  tend 
66 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

merely  to  increase  the  army  of  single  women,  to 
entrench  woman  more  firmly  in  every  form  of 
industry  and  make  her  so  contented  in  her  self- 
supporting  existence  that  she  will  be  slow  to  ex- 
change her  freedom  for  the  necessary  depend- 
ence and  limitations  of  a  child-bearing  woman  ? 
The  answer  is  yes  and  no !  Fortunately  the 
author  has  no  wish  to  dogmatize  as  to  particular 
methods  in  a  case  where  so  little  experimentation 
has  been  done.  It  is  possible  that  the  practice  of 
housekeeping  will  so  evolve  that  all  women  need 
not  cook  and  sew  just  because  they  are  women. 
This  question  of  the  woman  in  industry  is  a 
difficulty  which  must  be  frankly  acknowledged. 
It  is  well  that  women  are  able  to  support  them- 
selves. Many  a  rash  marriage,  many  an  uncon- 
genial one  is  prevented  by  the  independence 
with  which  a  wage-earning  woman  can  await  her 
happiness.  Women  also  find  in  pre-marital  years 
of  wage-earning,  a  disciplinary  training  in  or- 
derly, methodical  habits  which  is  invaluable  to  a 
future  wife  and  mother  whose  autocratic  position 
in  the  household  might  tempt  her  to  unsystematic 
work.  "  It  is  noticeable,"  says  Helen  Bosanquet,1 
"  that  girls  who  are  engaged  in  skilled  industries 
are  better  fitted  for  their  home  duties  afterwards 

1  Helen  Bosanquet,  The  Family. 

67 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

than  girls  engaged  in  rough  and  unskilled  work." 
And  surely  better  fitted  than  untrained  girls  pre- 
viously occupied  at  nothing ! 

Yet  the  hard-headed  man  sometimes  objects 
that  a  program  for  thorough  trade  education 
may  suit  boys,  who  are  a  stable  industrial  factor, 
but  that  it  is  useless  to  teach  a  girl  her  whole 
trade,  because  she  so  seldom  needs  it.  The  ques- 
tion is  more  than  economic ;  such  instruction 
trains  her  mind  to  unified  thinking  —  a  habit 
surely  priceless  whether  the  concrete  problems 
of  her  trade  are  of  further  use  to  her  or  not. 

Viewed,  however,  from  the  economic  side,  the 
question  of  the  woman  in  industry  is  seen  to  be 
more  than  training  for  a  brief  business  career  to 
be  terminated  by  marriage.  It  is  roughly  esti- 
mated that  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  women 
workers  are  over  twenty-five  years  of  age.  This 
indicates  five  to  ten  years  previously  spent  in 
wage-earning,  and  suggests  that  no  small  propor- 
tion of  this  fifty  per  cent  will  continue  indefin- 
itely self-supporting.  For  these  women  life  pre- 
sents a  masculine  problem,  and  the  trades  upon 
which  their  future  safety  and  comfort  depend 
must  be  taught  well  at  all  hazards,  even  if  time 
forces  the  sacrifice  of  strictly  feminine  branches. 
Better  do  well  one  thing  and  that  the  most  ur- 
68 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

gent,  than  half  perform  two  tasks,  however  im- 
portant the  second  may  appear.  The  principles 
laid  down  in  this  chapter  stand  as  our  ideal ;  but 
education,  like  politics,  must  be  wisely  oppor- 
tunist. We  cannot  deny  the  fact  that  many 
women  are  engaged  not  in  their  natural  trade, 
but  in  a  multitude  of  industrial  and  mercantile 
pursuits ;  and  common  sense  demands  that  school- 
ing should  prepare  them  unequivocally  for  what 
they  do  instead  of  for  what  some  one  may  think 
they  ought  to  do. 

Even  the  girl  to  whom  industry  is  but  a  tem- 
porary means  of  livelihood  presents  a  more  com- 
plicated problem  than  that  of  her  own  personal 
welfare.  From  the  Kansas  City  Labor  Herald 
we  quote  a  union  man's  opinion  that,  "  When  we 
consider  the  fact  that  the  average  time  worked 
by  a  woman  or  girl  is  computed  as  five  years,  it 
is  easy  to  see  that  a  long  apprenticeship  cannot 
be  served,  and  any  school  training  which  will  as- 
sist her  to  earlier  efficiency  must  be  favorably 
received  by  us."  May  not  the  industrial  tran- 
sient be  worth  training  for  the  sake  of  those  with 
whose  wages  she  competes  ?  Not  industry  alone 
would  profit  by  the  greater  capacity  of  its  women 
workers  which  would  follow  the  opening  of  trade 
schools  for  girls.  Every  worker,  man  or  woman, 

69 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

would  profit  thereby,  for  at  present  the  most 
ruinous  competition  with  which  skilled  labor 
meets  is  the  cheap  unskilled  labor  of  women. 
Because  they  are  untrained,  women  can  command 
only  the  lowest  wages ;  because  they  are  untrained, 
they  fall  quickly  into  cheap  specialties  and  do  not 
raise  their  wages ;  because  they  are  untrained  in 
mind  as  well  as  in  hand,  their  trade  union  organi- 
zations are  not  usually  compact  enough  for  power; 
and  because  they  often  take  a  temporizing  view 
of  labor,  which  no  instruction  overcomes  by  in- 
terest in  the  thing  itself,  they  care  little  about 
self-improvement  and  are  so  uncertain  a  factor  in 
industry  that  their  lower  wage  is  explained  if  not 
excused  from  the  employer's  point  of  view. 

From  whatever  standpoint  we  survey  the 
matter,  it  presents  one  unchanging  aspect.  That 
women  are  in  industry  to  stay — as  a  class  if  not 
as  individuals  —  seems  an  established  fact.  And 
so  long  as  they  are  in  industry,  they  deserve  as 
adequate  training  for  their  tasks  as  men. 
J  Two  other  arguments  for  vocational  training 
of  women  (whether  domestic  or  industrial)  force 
themselves  upon  our  notice.  As  has  been  said  in 
another  connection,  trade  schools  ought  to  secure  \ 
a  respectful  attitude  toward  work.  If  more  of 
our  young  women  took  some  personal  interest  in 
70 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

housework ;  if  more  of  them  were  trained  to  man- 
age a  house  economically  and  even  to  do  the  work 
well  and  expeditiously  themselves,  they  would  be 
willing  and  able  to  marry  on  less  and  begin  more 
simply  than  many  a  young  person  now  thinks  of 
doing  in  some  walks  of  life.  Thus  perhaps  some 
of  the  justly  deplored  late  marriages,  with  their 
correspondingly  decreased  birth  rate,  might  be 
avoided.  Our  ethical  concept  has  in  this  case 
gone  in  advance  of  the  biological  evolution.  We 
must  not  try  to  force  it  too  far  ahead,  or  nature 
will  pull  us  up  short  rein  by  some  signal  warning. 

The  problem  of  late  marriage  is  bound  up 
closely  with  a  still  graver  question  upon  which 
.trade  education  should  have  an  even  deeper  and 
better  influence  —  that  travesty  of  marriage,  pro- 
stitution. Prostitution  is  a  survival  of  primitive 
polygamy  and  later  concubinage,  monogamy  as 
a  type  having  been  slow  of  development,  being 
still,  indeed,  far  from  perfectly  developed  in  hu- 
man ideals  and  conduct.  And  modern  social  or- 
ganization impedes  its  development  in  many 
ways ;  nay,  almost  inevitably  prolongs  the  bar- 
baric system  amongst  us. 

How? 

Prostitutes  may  be  classified  as  :  (i)  Naturally 
depraved ;  (2)  girls  who  have  been  betrayed  and 
7i 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

left  helpless  ;  (3)  girls  who  have  a  strong  distaste 
for  work  ;  (4)  girls  who,  through  inefficiency  or 
underpay,  cannot  earn  by  legitimate  means  enough 
to  live.  The  last  groups  are  larger  than  one  likes 
to  think,  because  their  sin  is  so  manifestly  the 
fault  of  the  society  which  has  allowed  them  to 
grow  up  untrained  in  the  matters  whereon  their 
life  and  safety  depend,  and  which  purchases  its  lux- 
uries a  little  cheaper  by  the  sacrifice  of  some  under- 
paid sales-clerk,  sewing-woman,  or  factory  girl. 

Before  these  unfortunates  have  drifted  to  wreck 
on  the  shores  of  our  city  life,  the  trade  school 
will  come  to  their  aid.  The  indolent  girl  who  de- 
spises labor  will  there  learn  that  work  is  honor- 
able, and  will  conceive  an  intelligent  interest  in 
some  worthy  pursuit.  The  inefficient  girl  may  ac- 
quire industrious,  regular  habits  and  become  able 
to  earn  her  livelihood.  If  she  has  an  excitable, 
unsteady  temperament,  application  to  practical 
work  should  give  her  better  poise  and  at  least 
some  permanent  interest  to  counterbalance  her 
fever  for  excitement.  It  is  the  old  question  of 
prevention  or  cure  ;  trade  or  reform  schools.  The 
young  learner  would  find  her  dangerous  period 
of  almost  unremunerative  apprenticeship  materi- 
ally shortened  by  attendance  upon  a  trade  con- 
tinuation school,  because,  when  working  and 
72 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

studying  simultaneously,  she  could  forge  ahead 
more  rapidly  toward  the  point  where  earnings  and 
expenditures  balance.  For  the  woman  who  is  so 
underpaid  that  she  cannot  live  or  cannot  dress  in 
accordance  with  the  requirements  of  her  trade,  or 
whose  average  salary  gives  her  no  chance  for  the 
recreation  and  pleasure  which  a  healthy  nature 
craves,  there  are  only  two  lines  of  hope:  self- 
help  through  trade  union  organization,  and  public 
opinion  which  shall  refuse  to  patronize  business 
concerns  that  underpay  their  women.  For  trade 
union  action,  intelligent  workers  are  required. 
We  have,  alas !  no  quicker  nostrum  for  the  crea- 
tion of  that  social  sense  in  which  all  prostitutes 
will  find  their  chief  salvation  than  slow  education 
of  the  public  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
dangers  and  terrors  of  this  evil  which  menaces 
not  merely  the  health,  happiness,  and  morality 
of  a  fraction  of  our  women,  but  the  whole  future 
stamina  of  our  race.  But  we  maintain  that,  in 
the  present  state  of  chaos  and  difficulty,  the 
Vocational  School  will  be  a  great  help  and  a  pow- 
erful deterrent  for  the  girl  whom  unguided  cir- 
cumstance now  throws  into  the  undertow  of  civili- 
zation, since  it  will  give  every  girl  an  honorable 
pride  in  independence  and  the  ability  to  keep  her- 
self independent. 


VI 

IN  THE  COUNTRY 

"Agriculture  underlies  all  industries  and  draws  upon  all 
sciences."  —  Wickson.i 

In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  spoken  of 
the  seven  million  or  more  persons  who  are  en- 
gaged in  American  industry.  There  is  an  even 
larger  class  for  whom  the  vocational  school  would 
be  invaluable  —  the  farmers.  One  third  of  our 
population  still  lives  upon  the  land ;  and  many 
more  than  the  ten  and  a  half  million  agricultural 
workers  enumerated  by  the  last  census  can  and 
will  sooner  or  later  turn  to  the  country  for  sup- 
port. 

But  in  spite  of  this  preponderance  of  rural 
population,  our  civilization  is  distinctly  metro- 
politan. The  current  of  modern  improvement 
has  served  to  draw  country  districts  nearer  and 
nearer  the  city.  The  city,  on  the  other  hand, 
overflows  its  suburbs  and  covers  the  country 
with  a  thin  metropolitan  veneer.  This  is  inimical 
to  the  growth  of  a  healthy  country  life  rooted  in 

1  Mr.  Wickson  in  Cyclopedia  of  American  Agriculture. 

74 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

the  soil  and  drawing  therefrom  spirit  and  sus- 
tenance, for,  in  fact  as  in  fiction,  there  is  a  genu- 
ine pastoral  element,  which  has  its  own  laws 
of  development,  and  which  is  too  precious  to 
smother  under  any  city-made  mantle  of  pro- 
gress. 

The  disappointing  inapplicability  of  our  long 
cherished  idyllic  theory  of  country  life  to  the 
bare,  hard  round  of  drudgery  which  its  reality 
discloses,  has  helped  to  retard  our  appreciation 
of  this  element.  Probably  there  is  no  more  fruit- 
ful field  for  social  work  than  the  village,  particu- 
larly the  old  established  village.  The  human 
stock  needs  replenishing.  Existence  is  stagna- 
tion. There  is  no  society  —  how  can  there  be 
where  there  is  no  continual  supply  of  fresh  in- 
terests to  interchange  ?  —  and  since  the  school- 
ing of  the  average  country  child  stops  early,  he 
never  acquires  those  inward  resources  which 
solitude  demands.  Owing  also  to  this  lack  of 
education,  country  districts  resent  innovation, 
and  are  slow  to  improve  their  methods  of  work 
and  conditions  of  living. 

The  youth  and  energy  of  the  country  has 

found  the  path  of  least  resistance  to  be  quitting 

rather  than  reconstructing  country  life.    Thus 

we  have  seen  in  the  last  fifty  years  an  exodus 

75 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

cityward,  and  westward,  which  has  produced  the 
twofold  result  of  city  congestion  and  under-de- 
velopment  of  rural  resources.  This  exodus  has 
been  stimulated  by  educational  ideals  as  well  as 
by  economic  pressure.  Little  has  been  done  by 
the  schools  to  make  farming  seem  an  oppor- 
tunity for  ambition  and  talent.  Few  educational 
and  cultural  advantages  have  been  available  for 
the  farmer,  whereas  the  city  is  in  itself  a  lib- 
eral education.  The  largeness  of  urban  life  has 
seemed  intimately  bound  up  with  its  superior 
business  opportunities.  The  introduction  of  farm 
machinery,  and  the  factory  production  of  much 
which  was  formerly  made  in  the  household,  has 
greatly  reduced  the  demand  for  country  labor ; 
hired  help  find  their  uncertain  and  at  best  un- 
steady employment  more  and  more  unsatisfac- 
tory and  are  easily  tempted  to  the  comparatively 
sure  and  continuous  work  of  industry.  Because 
of  discriminative  transportation  rates  to  larger 
centers,  industry  has  left  the  small  towns,  re- 
moving not  only  the  demand  for  workmen,  but 
also  the  market  for  farm  products,  to  the  distant 
city.  With  this  decline  in  the  home  market,  the 
less  desirable  land  can  no  longer  compete  with 
fertile  regions,  and  many  farms  in  New  England, 
New  York,  and  even  Ohio,  have  been  aban- 
76 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

doned.  The  farmer  has  either  gone  to  the  city, 
or  pushed  westward  where  land  is  new,  cheap, 
and  more  plentiful,  and  intensive  methods  are 
not  yet  necessary  in  order  to  produce  a  crop. 
But  now  that  our  new  territory  is  taken  up,  while 
at  the  same  time  our  population  steadily  increases 
and  a  larger  food  supply  is  daily  becoming  neces- 
sary, we  must  expect  a  change.  Much  abandoned 
land  will  again  be  brought  under  cultivation, 
much  exhausted  land  will  be  reenriched,  and 
more  careful,  scientific  agriculture  will  develop. 
Education  is  already  paving  the  way  to  the 
reconstruction  of  farming  methods,  but  education 
has  as  yet  touched  only  the  overseer,  the  gentle- 
man farmer.  As  Dean  David  Kinley  puts  it, 
education  is  lifting  farming  from  the  grade  of 
manual  labor  to  that  of  a  technical  calling  or 
profession.  Schools  of  agriculture  are  gradually 
raising  their  standards  of  admission  until  aca- 
demically they  stand  or  expect  to  stand  on  the 
same  level  with  engineering  colleges.  With  such 
institutions  this  discussion  is  not  concerned.  We 
stand  for  the  plain  man ;  the  average  workman, 
the  average  small  farmer  or  even  farm  hand. 
He  too  needs  training  if  agriculture  is  to  form  a 
trustworthy  substructure  for  our  industrial  civil- 
ization. 

77 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Neglecting  to  train  our  farmers  means  as  basic 
and  certain  a  destruction  of  natural  resources 
and  reduction  of  national  prosperity  as  the  de- 
molition of  every  forest.  The  soil  is  our  funda- 
mental support.  We  are  its  creatures ;  our  fac- 
tories are  busy  with  its  products  ;  indeed,  human 
life  is  little  more  than  shaping  what  the  soil 
supplies  us  in  a  formless  state.  Who  is  the  keeper 
of  this  life-giving  mother  earth  ?  The  farmer. 
And  what  have  we  done  to  make  sure  that  he 
will  not  kill  the  goose  that  lays  our  golden  egg  ? 
We  have  a  habit  of  educating  those  who  perform 
the  secondary  human  functions  ;  but  the  vital 
primary  ones  are  left  entirely  to  untutored  im- 
pulse. 

The  nature  of  farm  work  renders  special  train- 
ing for  it  imperative.  Though  the  division  between 
labor  and  capital  is  at  length  asserting  itself  in 
this  field,  the  farmer's  work  is  usually  self-di- 
rected and  unspecialized.  Upon  one  man  depends 
the  success  of  many  acres.  He  must  understand 
trade  upon  trade,  drawing  from  all  the  sciences 
alike,  sending  out  ramifications  into  every  depart- 
ment of  knowledge.  An  acquaintance  with  local 
soil  and  climate  and  their  bearing  on  crop  raising ; 
with  the  chemistry  of  soil  and  crops  ;  with  ways  of 
preventing  depletion  of  the  soil  through  exhaus- 

7» 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

tion  and  erosion  ;  with  the  principles  of  drainage 
and  irrigation,  and  of  animal  and  plant  physiology, 
care  and  breeding ;  with  the  pests  and  diseases 
which  attack  vegetation  and  the  methods  of  fight- 
ing them,  — these  are  but  a  few  things  upon  which 
the  successful  farmer  or  even  intelligent  farm 
worker  can  scarcely  afford  to  be  ignorant.  Yet  all 
of  these  are  topics  for  which  widely  diversified  in- 
struction is  necessary,  topics  whose  frontier  of 
knowledge  is  rapidly  advancing  and  for  which  no 
hereditary  or  legendary  information  can  suffice. 
Finally,  successful  farming  demands  a  far-seeing 
and  daring  mind.  The  saving  from  a  larger  outlay 
which  may  increase  the  net  profits  in  far  greater 
proportion  is  a  subject  upon  which  the  untrained 
rustic  is  hard  to  convince.  Perhaps  even  more 
difficult  to  understand  is  the  point  where  the  law 
of  diminishing  returns  becomes  operative,  the 
point  beyond  which  intensive  methods  do  not 
bring  a  paying  return. 

"  The  increasing  capitalization  of  agriculture 
necessary  to  secure  the  greatest  long-run  profits 
is  putting  agriculture  more  and  more  into  the 
hands  of  educated  men  of  means.  Capitalization 
always  places  a  premium  upon  intelligence,"  is 
the  dictum  of  Dean  Davenport.  Unless  we  edu- 
cate all  farmers  instead  of  merely  those  gentle- 
79 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

men  farmers  who  find  their  way  to  our  colleges 
and  universities,  the  inevitable  development  we 
have  already  witnessed  in  industry  may  also 
be  expected  in  farming  ;  and  we  may  anticipate 
a  twentieth-century  feudalism  in  land  ownership 
and  the  rise  of  an  agrarian  proletariat.  In  mani- 
pulating this  proletarian  labor,  those  same  prob- 
lems which  now  obtrude  themselves  in  connec- 
tion with  unskilled  industrial  labor  may  be  ex- 
pected to  present  themselves. 

That  we  may  forestall  such  a  consummation  ; 
that  we  may  never  come  to  carry  such  a  burden 
of  agrarian  as  of  industrial  incompetence ;  that 
the  national  farming  resources  may  be  most  fully 
and  conservatively  developed ;  and  that  the  ex- 
travagant exhaustion  of  our  fertile  soil  by  unen- 
lightened cultivation  may  no  longer  continue, 
the  United  States  needs  some  systematic  agri- 
cultural education  which  shall  reach  every  rural 
inhabitant. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  what  form  of  agri- 
cultural training  should  be  introduced  into  coun- 
try schools,  but  certain  principles  to  govern  such 
instruction  may  safely  be  predicated.  Professor 
Earle  Barnes  makes  a  suggestive  distinction  be- 
tween educative  and  uneducative  work.  "  Work 
ceases  to  be  educative  when  we  have  mastered 
80 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

it  completely,  when  its  processes  have  become 
purely  reflex  and  it  ceases  to  engage  our  thought." 
It  is  not  alone  mechanical  work,  such  as  that 
of  the  ticket  chopper,  which  soon  loses  all  edu- 
cative value.  Any  task  in  which  the  worker 
does  not  continually  find  new  outlooks  widening 
before  him,  in  which  he  does  not  every  day  re- 
adjust his  mental  viewpoint  to  meet  some  new 
contingency,  in  which  (to  borrow  from  nature 
an  expression  of  the  perfect  adaptation  to  en- 
vironment which  precludes  further  progress) 
he  vegetates  —  any  such  task  is  not  merely 
uneducative  but  stultifying  as  well.  Work  may 
become  uneducative  without  being  thoroughly 
mastered  if  its  thought  possibilities  are  undevel- 
oped by  the  worker;  and  it  is  just  here  that  the 
country  schools  must  strive  for  the  uplift  of  rural 
intelligence.  The  "  hay-seed  "  is  not  a  hay-seed 
because  he  comes  from  the  country,  but  because 
humanly,  intellectually,  he  has  vegetated  and 
gone  to  seed. 

To  open  up  to  the  farm  population  the  cultural 
value  of  their  work  is  the  first  object  of  the 
country  school ;  and  this  can  be  done  only  by 
giving  rural  education  a  new  direction  and  alter- 
ing its  ideal.  The  same  subjects  may  be  taught, 
but  they  will  be  taught  in  terms  of  the  country. 
81 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

The  grammar  grades  should  most  emphatically 
not  attempt  to  give  training  in  general  farming 
methods  or  in  agricultural  theory.  Children  are 
interested  in  concrete  vital  phenomena,  not  in 
laws,  and  nature  study  should  be  used  to  excite 
the  intelligent  interest  of  the  pupils  in  the  life 
about  them.  But  the  manual  training  for  these 
elementary  grades  might  have  a  local  and  prac- 
tical bearing.  In  place  of  the  purely  formal  exer- 
cises so  common  in  schoolrooms,  the  class  might 
draw  subject-matter  from  practical  problems  of 
the  farm,  and  build  fences,  drains,  and  roadways 
instead  of  constructing  useless  wood,  paper,  or 
metal  objects.  The  school-garden  is  an  infinite 
resource  ;  and  could  be  made  practical  by  select- 
ing for  successive  years  the  different  crops  suit- 
able to  the  locality. 

In  addition  to  freshening  the  grammar  grades 
in  country  schools  with  a  breath  of  the  woods 
and  hills,  and  with  the  scent  of  good  red  earth  ; 
in  addition  to  turning  the  child's  mind  toward  the 
beauty  and  wonder  of  the  natural  world,  we  must 
also  give  him  special  training  for  his  life  work. 
This  will  begin  in  the  high  school. 

This  school  must  of  course  offer  general  aca- 
demic branches,  as  these  are  the  prerequisites 
of  farming  intelligence.  But  in  addition  to  this 
82 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

general  information  and  mental  drill,  the  agri- 
cultural problems  of  the  locality  should  be  cov- 
ered. As  Liberty  Hyde  Bailey  justly  declares, 
the  country  high  school  must  not  attempt  to  do 
superficially  what  the  college  does  exhaustively. 
Let  it  eschew  broad  and  theoretic  surveys  and 
do  thorough  work  on  definite,  significant  local 
problems. 

In  both  grammar  and  high  schools,  also,  vari- 
ous academic  branches  can  be  given  a  distinctly 
vocational  turn  without  detracting  from  their 
value  as  mind  trainers  or  sources  of  information. 
Geography,  like  charity,  may  well  begin  at  home; 
the  farm,  village,  township,  county,  state,  nation, 
and  continent  seems  a  logical  order  of  study. 
Map  drawing  would  in  this  way  assume  a  won- 
derful vitality  by  having  a  basis  in  visible  things. 
In  geography,  as  it  is  often  taught,  we  see  the 
grown-up  impulse  to  present  a  subject  analyt- 
ically, symmetrically.  But  the  natural  progress 
of  child  thought  is  from  the  known  to  the  un- 
known. Comprehensive  unity  the  child  cannot 
appreciate  ;  but  coherence  of  the  new  with  the 
familiar  is  needed  to  maintain  interest.  Arith- 
metic can  easily  deal  with  farm  problems.  Choice 
of  reading,  too,  is  a  fruitful  field.  Why  should 
not  the  English  course  include  books  which 
83 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

bring  out  the  wealth  of  rural  life  ?  —  not  books 
that  sentimentalize  over  the  country ;  pupils 
will  be  quick  to  detect  the  false  and  artificial 
note,  —  but  those  which  impart  a  new  and  deeper 
meaning  to  nature,  which  open  up  rural  oppor- 
tunities heretofore  undreamed  of,  and  give  an 
impulse  toward  creative  thinking  about  his  en- 
vironment that  will  endure  beyond  school  years 
and  make  the  farmer's  life  a  growth  and  a  con- 
tinual education. 

The  movement  for  better  rural  education  is 
already  widespread.  Practically  every  state  in 
the  Union  has  farmers'  institutes  designed  to 
arouse  interest  in  scientific  agriculture  and  to 
popularize  scientific  treatment  of  especially  im- 
portant farm  problems.  The  National  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  and  many  state  departments 
are  unflagging  in  disseminating  literature  and 
giving  consultation.  Experiment  stations  have 
given  incalculable  stimulus  to  up-to-date  farming 
in  adjoining  districts.  Colleges  of  agriculture  are 
everywhere  enlarging  their  extension  work  to 
include  lectures  on  agriculture,  traveling  schools, 
and  one,  two,  and  three  week  courses  held  either 
at  the  college  or  throughout  the  state.  Minne- 
sota, Arkansas,  Massachusetts,  Oklahoma,  Wis- 
consin, Alabama,  Georgia,  and  New  York  have 
84 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

promising  systems  of  so-called  agricultural 
schools  of  the  high  school  type,  and  in  many 
other  states  agricultural  courses  have  been  added 
to  the  curricula  of  existing  high  schools.  An  ex- 
tensive effort  is  being  made  to  equip  elementary 
school-teachers  for  presenting  agricultural  sub- 
jects. In  thirteen  states,  teaching  of  agriculture 
in  rural  schools  is  required  by  law,  while  in  thirty- 
one  it  is  encouraged.  Gardening  is  becoming  a 
feature  in  many  progressive  schools,  and,  though 
the  experiment  is  limited  in  extent,  it  is  unlim- 
ited in  results,  as  is  proved  by  the  social  and 
moral  effect  of  the  gardens  in  De  Witt  Clinton 
Park,  New  York,  in  Weccacoe  Square,  Philadel- 
phia, and  in  Dayton,  Ohio.  It  is  a  curious  fact, 
however,  that  school-gardening  has  been  largely 
confined  to  city  schools  and  betterment  agencies, 
and  that  its  educational  and  practical  value  in 
rural  communities  has  been  little  recognized. 
Where  gardening  is  not  done  in  connection 
with  school-work,  home  gardening  for  boys  and 
girls  is  widely  encouraged  by  the  competitive 
corn  and  tomato  clubs.  The  general  interest  in 
nature  study,  which  even  extravagant  faddists 
have  not  been  able  to  discredit,  is  our  longest 
step  forward  in  the  way  of  better  rural  school- 
ing, because  it   means  a  transforming  of  the 

85 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

spirit  and  a  redirecting  of  the  method  of  edu- 
cation. 

Marvelous  and  inspiring  as  are  the  strides 
which  the  movement  for  agricultural  education 
has  made  and  is  making  in  the  United  States, 
we  must  not  allow  them  to  blind  us  to  the  fact 
that,  after  all,  we  do  not  insure  to  every  farmer 
adequate  preparation  for  his  work.  The  special 
college  of  agriculture  is  out  of  the  question  for 
the  average  country  boy.  Little  use  is  made  of 
rural  common  schools  as  training  for  farm  life 
and  the  agricultural  high  school  is  still  a  rarity. 
"Probably  not  one  farmer  in  twenty-five  ever 
attends  a  farmers'  institute."  *  A  somewhat 
larger  fraction,  but  still  a  fraction,  read  intelli- 
gently the  government  bulletins.  The  short 
courses  and  special  lectures  offered  by  institutes 
and  colleges  are  not  and  cannot  be  a  systematic 
preparation  for  agriculture.  They  merely  solve 
the  concrete  difficulties  of  farming  for  the  per- 
son who  has  already  encountered  them  in  prac- 
tice. The  fundamental,  thorough,  and  comprehen- 
sive system  which  shall  give  us  a  competent  rural 
population  has  not  yet  been  evolved.  Yet  this 
preliminary  agitational  work  is  an  invaluable  test 
of  the  feasibility  of  scientific  agricultural  train- 

1  Report  of  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education,  1909,  chap.  XI. 

86 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

ing,  prepares  the  public  mind  for  the  adoption 
of  an  adequate  system,  and  should  determine 
the  exact  form  to  be  assumed  by  such  a  system. 
We  are,  so  to  speak,  breaking  up  and  preparing 
the  soil  for  the  new  educational  crop. 

Other  countries  have  gone  further  than  we  in 
the  matter.  France  has  established  schools  of 
agriculture  in  every  province,  schools  which  have 
encountered  a  great  deal  of  local  prejudice,  but 
which  are  raising  French  farming  to  a  higher 
level  of  efficiency.  Belgium  has  followed  and  im- 
proved upon  French  example.  The  name  of  Swit- 
zerland is  synonymous  with  scientific  agriculture ; 
and  while  an  American  is  poor  on  five  acres  a  Ger- 
man would  be  independent.  The  disparity  cannot 
be  explained  away  by  the  different  standards  of 
living.  It  is  partly  traceable  to  the  new  effort 
on  the  part  of  German,  and  notably  Prussian 
organizations,  to  educate  the  farmer  for  his  voca- 
tion. Austria  has  over  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
five  schools  in  which  agricultural  subjects  are 
taught.  Holland  and  Denmark  show  an  equally 
advanced  attitude  toward  agricultural  training, 
and  in  the  British  Isles,  the  movement  is  gain- 
ing ground.  In  England  and  Wales,  itinerant 
lecturers  under  the  auspices  of  the  county  coun- 
cils go  out  from  the  university  or  agricultural 
8/ 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

college  center  to  give  instruction  to  local  classes 
extending  over  several  weeks.  Special  problems, 
such  as  milk  handling,  are  discussed  through- 
out one  course.  These  instructors  also  supervise 
the  work  done  in  local  agricultural  continuation 
courses,  night  classes,  and  popular  lectures,  and 
they  advise  about  the  management  of  the  gar- 
dens which  are  becoming  a  more  and  more  com- 
mon feature  of  English  country  schools. 

Canada  uses  the  school-garden  to  good  effect. 
Her  rural  schools  have  regular  courses  in  agri- 
culture supplemented  by  work  on  an  experiment 
farm.  The  advantages  of  rotating  crops,  of  fertil- 
ization, of  proper  choice  and  care  of  seed  are  il- 
lustrated in  the  most  conclusive  manner  by  main- 
taining two  sets  of  fields  for  every  point  to  be 
proved.  In  one  field  crops  are  rotated  during  a 
certain  term  of  years,  while  that  adjoining  is 
planted  year  after  year  to  the  same  crop  and  soil 
exhaustion  becomes  evident  in  the  inferiority  of 
its  yields.  One  crop  is  adequately  fertilized ;  the 
adjoining  one  is  not ;  and  the  pupil  has  ocular 
proof  of  what  increase  in  net  profit  the  greater 
outlay  has  produced.  One  field  will  be  sowed 
with  new,  selected,  fumigated  seed  ;  the  adjoin- 
ing one  with  old  seed.  This  system  is  revolution- 
izing Canadian  farming,  and  is  making  of  our 
88 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

sister  republic  on  the  north  a  dangerous  poten- 
tial competitor  for  future  American  food  mar- 
kets. 

The  question  of  agricultural  education  is,  how- 
ever, in  the  last  analysis  more  than  economic. 
We  need  it  not  so  much  that  we  may  raise  more 
corn  and  wine,  but  that  we  may  raise  better  men 
and  women  in  our  country  districts.  Any  work 
is  to  be  judged  rather  by  the  human  being  it  de- 
velops than  by  its  material  output.  And  the  hu- 
man resources  of  country  life,  we  have  as  yet 
neglected.  Our  rural  populations  are  not  rooted 
to  the  soil.  The  country  road  which  passes  by 
the  author's  ancestral  home  shows  scarce  a  fam- 
ily which  has  lived  more  than  twenty  years  upon 
the  land.  Most  of  the  places  have  changed  hands 
within  the  past  ten  years.  New  names,  new  faces 
—  a  continual  flux !  And  what  of  the  neighbor- 
hood which  for  a  century  has  not  outgrown  this 
fluid  transitional  stage  ?  Barren  of  association, 
barren  of  traditional  ideals,  what  formative  influ- 
ence can  it  exert  upon  the  character  of  its  people  ? 
What  love  or  respect  can  they  have  for  its  beau- 
ties ?  What  intelligent  policy  of  conservation  can 
this  shifting  population  maintain  ?  The  land  is 
harried  by  a  succession  of  transient  farmers ;  its 
woods  are  leveled  ;  its  hills  unveiled.  Their  past 
89 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

is  dead;  their  future,  a  matter  of  indifference. 
The  farmer's  sole  thought  is  to  get  all  he  can  at 
any  cost ;  he,  too,  will  soon  move  on. 

The  life  of  such  a  place  is  raw  and  tasteless  ; 
it  lacks  the  mellow  savor  of  a  community  which 
has  been  a  slow  accretion  of  all  that  was  best 
and  most  enduring  in  many  decades  of  human 
growth.  It  lacks  social  solidarity  ;  it  lacks  stan- 
dards. Its  language  has  no  earthy  tang  ;  its  bad 
grammar  never  rises  to  the  dignity  of  dialect. 
Perhaps  such  a  neighborhood  escapes  the  stag- 
nation of  the  isolated  village  where  a  static  inbred 
population  is  year  by  year  deteriorating ;  but  it 
represents  an  equally  undesirable  extreme.  Be- 
tween the  two  there  lies  the  mean  of  true  agra- 
rian self-realization. 

Education  for  the  farmer  must  not  lead  him 
away  from  the  farm,  but  teach  him  to  bring  the 
best  from  the  outside  world  into  farm  life.  Perhaps 
then  we  may  hold  our  population  generation  after 
generation  on  the  ancestral  acres,  and  produce 
that  solidity  of  race,  that  richness  of  association 
and  legend  which  make  for  the  beauty  of  some 
European  countries  and  give  the  life  of  the  peo- 
ple that  perspective  which  Hawthorne  has  said 
is  necessary  to  the  production  of  a  national  liter- 
aturc. 


VII 

TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  ORGANIZED  LABOR 

Notwithstanding  reports  to  the  contrary,  or- 
ganized labor  favors  trade  education.  At  the 
Washington  Conference  of  Labor  Leaders,  it  was 
resolved  that  industrial  training,  beginning  in  the 
higher  grammar  grades,  should  become  a  part  of 
the  public  school  system,  and  that  school  atten- 
dance up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  years  should  be 
made  compulsory.  The  meeting  of  the  Federation 
of  Labor  at  Toronto  reinforced  the  Washington 
resolution.  It  may  be  objected  that  the  Federa- 
tion is  more  conservative  than  the  average  trade 
union,  and  hence,  though  officially  labor's  organ, 
not  really  representative  of  union  sentiment.  The 
precise  weight  of  this  objection  can  be  measured 
by  the  results  of  a  canvass  of  New  York  State 
unions.  Out  of  twenty-four  hundred  and  fifty  or- 
ganizations, fifteen  hundred  favored  preparatory 
trade  schools  for  children  from  fourteen  to  sixteen; 
and  twelve  hundred  and  thirty-two  of  these  also 
favored  special  trade  schools  for  boys  from  sixteen 
to  eighteen  years  of  age. 
9i 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Nevertheless  we  often  hear  that  trade  unions 
oppose  any  extension  of  apprenticeship  and  are 
much  more  hostile  to  free  trade  education.  That 
they  have  sometimes  looked  with  disfavor  upon 
potential  competitors,  in  the  fear  that  they  will 
depress  the  union  wage,  is  undoubtedly  true  ;  and 
certain  labor  organizations  have  adopted  a  medie- 
val policy  of  limited  apprenticeship  recalling  that 
which  formerly  undermined  the  usefulness  of 
guilds.  The  wronged  person  is  rarely  wise  in  his 
first  efforts  at  redress.  This  restriction  upon  ap- 
prenticeship is  not,  however,  nearly  so  important 
or  so  sweeping  as  is  popularly  supposed.  Ralph 
Albertson,  of  Filene's  department  store,  Boston, 
states  that  no  trade  union  restricts  the  number 
of  apprentices  to  less  than  seven  per  cent  of  the 
adult  workers  and  that  twenty  per  cent  is  the 
usual  union  regulation ;  whereas  the  actual  num- 
bers employed  in  the  best  trades  still  left  for  ap- 
prentices are:  5.86  per  cent  in  machine  trades,  5.70 
per  cent  in  plumbing,  and  1 .3  per  cent  in  the  build- 
ing trades.  While  the  danger  of  overproduction  is 
as  real  in  the  labor  market  as  in  that  of  manufac- 
ture, experience  has  taught  that  in  both  it  is  subject 
to  rational  control^  and  the  antagonism  to  more 
thorough  methods  of  apprenticeship  comes  from 
a  decreasing  number  of  unintelligent  laborers 
92 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  LABOR 

whose  sense  of  grievance  is  real  and  poignant,  but 
whose  rudimentary  vision  of  cause  and  effect  is 
still  blinded  by  resentment. 

From  a  Middle  Western  labor  council  comes  a 
liberal  statement  upon  this  most  mooted  point  in 
all  union  discussions  of  industrial  education.  Sup- 
plemental trade  schools  "have  proved  a  great 
benefit  to  apprentices  who  may,  by  the  limits  of 
the  shop  they  are  working  in,  or  from  other  causes, 
be  denied  the  advantage  of  getting  into  close  con- 
tact with  all  the  branches  of  their  work ;  and  as 
a  preliminary  training  they  would  give  the  pro- 
spective mechanic  such  a  grounding  in  his  elemen- 
tary work  that  it  would  seem  advisable  to  allow  all 
or  part  of  the  time  spent  in  the  school  to  count 
on  his  apprenticeship  term." 

The  process  by  which  this  decision  was  reached 
reveals  the  real  attitude  of  the  average  union  man. 
Believing  that  union  labor  has  a  valuable  contri- 
bution to  offer  the  projector  of  a  program  for  in- 
dustrial training,  and  hoping  to  create  a  new  block 
of  active  public  opinion  in  favor  of  such  training 
in  Kansas  City,  the  author  sent  questionnaires  to 
every  trade  union  in  the  city  and  asked  the  Indus- 
trial Council  to  take  a  definite  stand  upon  the 
matter.  The  first  response  from  many  of  the 
locals  was  a  suspicious  negation  due  to  ignorance. 
93 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Letters  arguing  pro  and  con  poured  into  the  au- 
thor's mail  —  the  hottest  negatives  often  furnish- 
ing factual  evidence  in  favor  of  trade  schooling. 
Discussion  in  the  Industrial  Council  was  warm 
and  marked,  not  by  opposition  to  vocational  train- 
ing, but  by  fear  of  "  some  nigger  in  the  wood  pile/' 
Finally  the  Council  appointed  a  committee  to 
study  the  subject  in  detail  and  report  its  progress 
at  successive  meetings.  The  result  of  this  study 
is  indicated  above,  and  probably  represents  the 
attitude  not  merely  of  labor  leaders,  but  of 
unionists  who  have  given  the  subject  thoughtful 
consideration.  The  committee  further  recom- 
mended that  the  Industrial  Council  urge  the  es- 
tablishment of  part-time  trade  schools,  "  provided 
the  trade  instructors  were  chosen  from  the  best 
men  now  at  work  in  industry  and  provided  the 
Council  were  given  some  share  in  shaping  the 
general  policy  of  the  schools."  The  original  hesi- 
tancy of  the  unions  is  thus  seen  to  have  been  com- 
mendable fear  of  indorsing  an  ill-defined  program, 
a  fear  that  vanished  before  a  clear-cut  plan  with 
measurable  consequences. 

Great  difficulties  undoubtedly  present  them 
selves  in  grounding  vocational  schools.  The  train- 
ing must  fit  the  needs  of  the  region  or  it  will 
merely  graduate  candidates  for  unemployment. 
94 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  LABOR 

Suppose  the  industry  of  a  region  changes.  Can 
the  school  follow  quickly  enough  ?  Suppose  new 
methods  of  manufacture  are  introduced.  Can  the 
school  afford  to  scrap  at  once  its  out-of-date  but 
expensive  machinery  as  a  factory  would  do  and 
thus  keep  pace  with  business  development  ?  How 
to  divide  pupils  among  the  different  branches ; 
how  to  prevent  overcrowding  with  its  subsequent 
oversupply  of  pupils  from  popular  classes ;  how 
to  guard  against  the  subtle  temptation  to  over- 
emphasis offered  to  the  principal  by  iron  and  wood 
industries  which  lend  themselves  well  to  class- 
room work  ;  how,  in  short,  to  articulate  the  school 
and  the  industry  so  closely  that  no  superfluous 
worker  will  be  produced  —  these  are  all  questions 
indicative  of  grave  dangers,  dangers  which  make 
the  labor  union  justly  oppose,  not  the  trade  school 
ideal,  but  certain  types  of  trade  school  which  in- 
volve them.  This  is  the  reason  why  French  work- 
ingmen's  organizations  have  shown  real  hostility 
to  vocational  schools  whose  enrollment  is  indepen- 
dent of  the  need  for  new  workers  in  industry.  This 
is  also  the  reason  why  our  own  labor  unions  look 
askance  at  really  effective  trade  courses  which 
rotate  apprentices  weekly  between  school  and 
factory.  Such  an  arrangement  as  the  Fitchburg, 
Massachusetts  plan,  with  its  alternate  weeks  of 
95 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

classroom  study  and  actual  wage-earning,  means 
at  bottom  that  twice  as  many  workers  are  being 
trained  as  can  be  ultimately  utilized.  Against 
such  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  employer,  labor 
naturally  protests. 

But  over  against  these  dangers  stands  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  skilled  but  unskilled  labor  which 
menaces  the  union  wage.  "  We  have  too  many  un- 
trained boys  already  in  our  trade,"  writes  many 
a  union  secretary.  Though  it  be  true  that  many 
industries  must  have  unskilled  helpers,  we  need 
not  acquiesce,  nor  will  the  union  man,  awake  to 
the  true  interest  of  his  class,  acquiesce  in  the  plea 
that  because  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  un- 
skilled work  to  be  done,  a  whole  section  of  human- 
ity must  forever  be  kept  ignorant  in  order  to  per- 
form it.  Such  inferior  positions  may  well  be  held 
temporarily  by  beginners  in  industry  who,  later, 
will  pass  to  higher  tasks  and  make  room  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ladder  for  new  aspirants.  Further- 
more, as  far  as  the  eye  of  the  present  can  reach, 
men  will  always  be  unequally  able  to  profit  by  in- 
struction and  the  less  apt  must  content  them- 
selves with  comparatively  unskilled  work.  The 
trade  school  gives  every  man  a  chance  to  make 
the  most  of  himself,  but  does  not,  cannot  war- 
rant that  the  "  mosts  "  will  be  alike. 
96 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  LABOR 

Another  trouble,  which  is  sure  to  arise  in  the  \ 
course  of  effective  trade  school  management,  is 
that  unions  oppose  the  sale  of  school  products. 
The  words  "  institution-made  goods  "  are  familiar 
to  all  who  have  followed  the  course  of  prison  re- 
form and  have  noted  the  untimely  check  which, 
because  of  an  unlucky  complication  of  issues,1 
progressive  methods  in  penitentiaries  have  often 
met  at  the  hands  of  manufacturers  and  unionists 
alike.  That  the  goods  are  made  in  an  institution  I 
is  not  the  union  objection,  but  that  they  some-  I 
times  sell  at  a  price  which  cannot  cover  a  living 
wage  for  independent  workmen  in  competing 
factories.  When  a  fall  in  market  prices  and  subse- 
quent reduction  in  wages  seems  imminent,  pri- 
son goods  are  compelled  by  law  to  retire  from 
the  field,  and  many  criminals  fall  idle  in  confine- 
ment or  are  occupied  at  trades  which  can  be 
of  little  service  to  them  after  discharge.  Al- 
though the  temptation  partly  to  recoup  the 
public  treasury  for  an  outlay  quite  independent 
of  sales  is  easy  to  understand,  there  is  no  reason 
why  prison  goods  should  be  marketed  so  far  be- 
low the  real  cost  of  production ;  and  an  enlight- 
ened opinion  will  repair  this  blundering  action 

1  Such  as  the  related  but  entirely  separate  question  of  leas* 
ing  convict  labor  to  private  contractors. 

97 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

and  attack  the  real  crux  of  the  matter,  regulation 
of  prices.  The  question  of  school-made  goods  is 
susceptible  of  the  same  sort  of  regulation.  It  is 
obviously  undesirable  for  a  school  to  become  a 
money-making  institution;  speed  and  economy 
would  soon  usurp  the  place  of  careful  education. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  the  prices  of  school- 
made  goods  should  not  follow  the  market,  since 
no  private  profit  impels  to  underselling  the  legi- 
timate producer. 

It  was  not,  however,  because  there  were  no 
well-grounded  arguments  against  it  that  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  declared  in  favor 
of  public  vocational  instruction.  These  hard^ 
handed  men  recognized  that  labor  would  benefit 
thereby,  not  only  in  myriad  indirect  reactions 
upon  the  laboring  man  and  his  living  conditions, 
but  directly  in  a  higher  wage.  That  competence 
is  better  paid  than  incompetence  is  self-evident, 
and  the  proof  which,  in  economics,  even  an  axiom 
seems  to  require  is  furnished  by  comparison  of 
the  wages  of  trade  school  graduates  and  ordinary 
apprentices.  The  Massachusetts  Commission  on 
Industrial  and  Technical  Training  publish  the  fol- 
lowing table  based  upon  a  study  of  two  thousand 
wage-earners  in  Massachusetts :  — 


98 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  LABOR 


Age 

Wages  per  week  of 

Wages  per  week  of 

mere  apprentice 

Trade  School  Graduate 

14 

$  4.00 

— 

J5 

4-5° 

— 

16 

5.00 

— 

17 

6.00 

— 

18 

7.00 

$10.00 

19 

8.50 

"•75 

20 

9-5° 

15.00 

21 

9-5° 

16.00 

22 

11.50 

20.00 

23 

n-75 

21.00 

24 

12.00 

23.00 

25 

12.75 

31.00 

The  depressing  effect  on  wages  in  industry  of 
the  low  rates  due  to  overcrowding  in  non-indus- 
trial lines,  particularly  clerical,  would  be  in  some 
measure  counteracted  by  attracting  into  trade 
those  very  competitors  before  whom  some  short- 
sighted union  men  tremble,  but  who  might  per- 
form the  additional  service  of  superseding  the 
cheaper  labor  of  the  immigrants  who  menace 
American  standards  in  many  vocations  and  pre- 
sent a  problem  with  which  unions  cope  valiantly 
but  ineffectually. 

A  less  obvious  feature  of  the  effect  on  wages 
of  better  trade  instruction  is  its  bearing  on  inter- 
99 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

national  competition.  Unless  the  American  la- 
borer wishes  to  be  superseded  on  his  own  soil  by 
the  output  of  some  clever  toiler  across  the  sea, 
he  must  be  cleverer  than  his  distant  rival.  But 
until  he  has  as  good  a  training  as  is  given  to 
workmen  abroad,  he  will  be  no  more  certain  of 
his  job  than  if  that  foreigner  were  standing  at  his 
elbow  asking  for  it. 

If  the  future  of  labor  is  to  lie  in  the  hands  of 
labor,  then  labor  must  be  wise.  When  the  work- 
ing man  can  afford  to  remain  longer  in  school,  he 
will  learn  to  use  his  head  as  well  as  his  hands, 
and  the  union  needs  heads  fully  as  much  as  hands. 
At  present,  half  its  strength  goes  to  self-educa- 
tion. To  raise  the  standard  of  living  of  its  mem- 
bers, to  teach  workers  the  value  of  their  labor,  to 
open  their  eyes  to  what  constitutes  decent  condi- 
tions of  work  and  pay,  to  arouse  them  to  the 
need  for  organization,  and  to  drill  them  in  effect- 
ive methods  of  cooperation  are  the  prime  tasks 
which  confront  the  labor  union,  and  especially 
the  labor  union  in  immigrant  neighborhoods.  The 
real  champion  of  Americanism  is  the  American 
laborer ;  and  in  fortifying  American  standards, 
the  struggle  of  the  union  will  find  its  strongest 
support  in  the  trade  school. 

Not  only  higher  standards,  but  the  thought 
ioo 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  LABOK 

power  which  breeds  sane  and  rational  methods 
of  accomplishing  them,  will  be  the  property  of  a 
better  educated  working  public.  With  training  in 
history  and  civics  and  hygiene  comes  a  widening 
of  outlook  which  will  elevate  union  effort  from 
the  level  of  self-seeking  to  that  of  civic  enter- 
prise. Let  the  rank  and  file  come  into  the  organ- 
ization equipped,  not  only  with  the  information 
necessary  to  secure  their  own  advancement,  but 
with  some  knowledge  of  the  place  of  that  ad- 
vancement in  the  social  and  industrial  whole, 
and  the  union  will  prove  an  invincible  force 
both  for  workingmen's  betterment  and  for  public 
welfare. 


VIII 

TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIALISM 

Socialism  is  a  philosophy  of  intelligence. 

It  is  not  a.  leveling  down  of  society.  It  is  not 
absolute  communism.  It  is  not  a  scheme  of  spo- 
liation devised  by  the  "have  nots"  to  enrich  them- 
selves at  the  expense  of  the  M  haves."  It  is  not 
a  system  of  governmental  paternalism  and  indi- 
vidual inertia.  Its  ideal  is  not  drab  uniformity. 

Benjamin  Franklin  once  said  of  a  plan,  whose 
adoption  he  had  unsuccessfully  defended,  that 
the  extreme  diversity  and  contradictorinessof  the 
arguments  urged  against  it  proved  to  him  the 
soundness  of  his  proposition.  The  socialist  might 
lay  the  same  flattering  unction  to  his  soul,  as  at- 
tacks against  his  theory  of  life  are  so  opposite  in 
nature  as  to  refute  each  other.  This  is  due  to  a 
general  misconception  of  what  his  theory  is. 

I  Some  one  has  jestingly  remarked  that  every 
thinking  man  is  a  socialist,  whether  he  knows  it 
or  not.  In  a  measure  this  is  true,  for  every  think- 
ing man  believes  in  equal  opportunity  for  all : 
not  in  equality  —  but  in  opportunity  to  make  the 
most  of  those  diverse,  unequal  abilities  latent 
1 02 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIALISM 

within  us.  What  philosophy  calls  self-realization 
is  the  socialist's  ideal.  Nothing  could  be  more 
inimical  to  self-realization  than  the  perfect  uni- 
formity of  communism  or  the  absolute  license  of 
nihilism.  Socialism  would  proceed  by  another 
road.  Man  in  society  must  at  the  same  time  be 
free  to  grow  up  to  his  individual  limits. 

That  he  is  not  at  present  free  to  do  so  is  the 
socialist's  contention.  Private  ownership  of  cap- 
ital in  land  and  in  the  instruments  of  production 
has  given  certain  individuals  power  to  determine 
the  living  conditions  of  great  masses  of  people  ; 
and  the  competitive  organization  of  business  has 
forced  them  into  using  this  power  to  grind  down 
the  working  public  to  a  level  where  real  living  is 
impossible.  Socialism  would  transfer  from  pri- 
vate hands  to  the  general  public  the  ownership 
of  such  capital.  This,  according  to  John  Spargo,1 
does  not  mean  entire  abolition  of  property  lines. 
Only  as  private  property  gives  control  over  hu- 
man life,  or  reaps  social  values,  is  it  a  menace. 
Monopolies  belong  to  the  public  :  small  indepen- 
dent industries  might  well  be  left  to  private  initia- 
tive subject  to  governmental  regulation. 

Some  persons,  indeed  some  socialists,  see  in 

1  John  Spargo,  exponent  of  American  socialism,  in  an  ad- 
dress at  Vassar  College,  1907. 

103 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

socialism  a  purely  proletarian  movement.  This  is 
a  narrow  view.  Socialism  is  not  a  class  philosophy, 
but  a  universal  philosophy.  Matthew  Arnold, 
the  apostle  of  culture,  pleads  that  our  inequal- 
ity "materializes  our  upper  class,  vulgarizes  our 
middle  class,  and  brutalizes  our  lower  class,"  and 
it  is  for  the  sake  of  all  humanity  that  the  socialist 
desires  the  abolition  of  private  profit  which,  he 
maintains,  robs  master  and  servant  alike.  Society 
will  be  far  richer  when  the  lives  now  blighted  by 
adverse  economic  environment  reach  full  fruition 
of  their  powers. 

With  the  case  for  or  against  socialism  we  are 
not  here  and  now  concerned,  but  the  bearing  of 
this  most  significant  of  contemporary  propaganda 
upon  the  question  of  industrial  education  cannot 
be  ignored.  We  are  tending  toward  a  more  and 
more  socialistic  form  of  society.  The  fact  that  the 
party  polls  every  year  a  larger  and  larger  vote  is 
the  most  negligible  proof  that  this  is  true.  So- 
cialism's gains  have  come  in  the  main  through 
agents  without  the  ranks.  The  concentration  of 
capital  we  have  witnessed  in  the  United  States 
during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  paved 
the  way  to  a  socialization  of  commerce  and  indus- 
try which  is  already  taking  place.  Governmental 
supervision  is  a  pseudo-ownership,  examples  of 
104 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIALISM 

which  confront  us  on  every  hand.  Once  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  state  in  this  regard  is  estab- 
lished, real  ownership  will  follow  where  regulation 
proves  inadequate.  Natural  resources  are  thus 
more  and  more  appropriated  by  the  state.  Muni- 
cipalites  are  managing  their  public  utilities. 
Plank  after  plank  in  the  socialistic  program  has 
found  its  way  into  German,  English,  and  Ameri- 
can legislation  in  the  shape  of  extended  suffrage, 
initiative  and  referendum,  employer's  liability 
laws,  old  age  pensions,  accident  and  sick  insur- 
ance. Even  in  our  homes  we  feel  the  socialization 
of  living.  Not  only  are  we  dependent  upon  the 
outer  world  for  our  supplies,  but  milk  inspectors, 
pure  food  laws,  building  regulations,  and  health 
boards  attest  social  responsibility  for  individual 
welfare. 

All  this  means  an  increasingly  complicated 
system  of  government  requiring  greater  efficiency 
on  the  part  of  officials,  and  greater  and  greater 
civic  spirit  and  intelligence  in  the  citizens  who 
elect  and  censor  them.  How  well  is  a  republic, 
where  less  than  one  fourth  of  the  voters  ever  pass 
beyond  the  fifth  or  sixth  grade  in  grammar  school, 
prepared  to  solve  these  vast  and  delicate  gov- 
ernmental problems  ?  The  socialistic  state  re- 
quires high-grade  citizenship.  It  requires  a  think- 
105 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

ing  and  an  acting  public ;  and  especially  does  it 
demand  that  the  public  should  think  and  act  along 
the  lines  in  which  vocational  schools  should  train 
their  pupils. 

The  crux  of  socialism  is  of  course  economic. 
The  socialist  must  understand  industry  in  order  to 
realize  his  ideal  without  injustice :  not  merely  that 
particular  little  industrial  pigeonhole  in  which 
he  finds  his  daily  bread,  but  the  whole  trade  sit- 
uation. Specialization  has  multiplied  class  antag- 
onisms, and  just  so  long  as  we  have  an  unintelli- 
gent working  population  whose  vision  is  bounded 
by  the  special  process  at  which  they  toil,  who  do 
not  understand  the  work  and  function  of  all  fac- 
tors of  production  and  distribution,  so  long  shall 
we  have  irrational  demands  from  labor  and  irra- 
tional outbreaks ;  so  long  shall  we  have  an  ever- 
growing mass  of  workers  given  over  to  an  abor- 
tive, half-baked  socialism,  which  comes  to  little 
more  than  nihilism,  violence  and  damaging  of 
property  in  the  end.  When,  however,  as  Mr. 
Spargo  points  out,  discontented  persons  are  wise 
and  educated  enough  to  see  their  position  in  its 
historical  perspective,  there  is  no  class  hatred  for 
the  capitalist  on  the  part  of  the  worker.  Then  he 
judges  institutions  and  not  men ;  and  would  in- 
troduce his  reforms  through  legislation  fair  to 
106 


TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIALISM 

laborer  and  capitalist  alike.  Labor  has  a  voting 
majority,  and  the  only  safe  thing  for  capital  is  to 
educate  labor  broadly  and  thoroughly. 

It  is  not  alone  in  realizing  the  socialistic  ideal 
that  intelligent  citizenship  is  imperative.  If  labor 
is  to  own  capital  and  conduct  industry,  it  will  be 
necessary  that  the  workers  understand  the  whole 
process  of  manufacture  and  marketing.  Can  the 
academic  high  school  or  even  industry  itself  teach 
them  this  ?  And  when  government  officials  are 
managing  directors  of  commercial  enterprises,  the 
stockholding  voter  must  keep  a  watchful  and 
seeing  eye  upon  the  administration  of  the  pub- 
lic's business.  "There  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
automatic  democracy :  the  price  of  liberty  will 
always  be  eternal  vigilance." 1 

If  we  ever  have  a  socialistic  state,  progress 
will  no  longer  be  stimulated  by  desire  for  private 
gain.  In  place  of  love  of  profit  must  come  love  of 
perfection  and  the  intelligence  which  sees  beyond 
personal  concern  to  the  general  good.  Can  six 
years  in  grammar  school  inculcate  this  ? 

The  socialists  themselves  are  the  first  to  rec- 
ognize that  the  corner  stone  in  their  edifice  is 
education.  "  Anything  which  raises  the  standard 
of  life,  morality,  and  mentality  of  the  workers, 
1  Spargo:  Socialism, 
107 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

makes  them  increasingly  fit  to  assume  complete 
control  over  industry,"  says  Robert  Hunter.1  That 
vocational  training  is  the  surest  means  to  this 
end  was  the  thought  of  the  Radical  Republican 
and  Socialist  Congress  at  Dijon  when  it  declared 
in  favor  of  obligatory  industrial  education. 

1  Robert  Hunter,  Socialists  at  Work. 


IX 

FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

It  is  not  enough  to  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  trade 
education.  Faith  may  suffice  for  religion,  that 
glorious  realm  of  the  still  unrealized  ideal ;  but  in 
practical  affairs,  we  demand  sight,  proof,  fact. 
Therefore  the  advocate  of  industrial  training 
turns  to  actual  working  examples,  namely,  the 
trade  schools  of  Europe,  for  his  best  argument 
as  to  its  feasibility.  Moreover,  at  this  moment, 
when  American  interest  in  industrial  education 
far  outruns  the  definite  formulation  of  our  con- 
cept as  to  what  such  training  should  comprise 
and  a  rosy  glow  of  enthusiasm  lights  up  clouds 
of  theory,  renewed  study  of  the  well-tried  Euro- 
pean systems  is  a  propos.  France  and  Germany 
are  emerging  from  the  educational  renaissance 
at  whose  beginning  we  find  ourselves.  Lack  of 
perspective  and  of  thorough  investigation  pre- 
vents us  from  judging  rightly  the  effectiveness 
of  our  first  experiments  in  trade  instruction.  But 
the  oversea  school  presents  no  such  difficulty. 
There  we  read  plainly  the  failure  of  methods  on 
109 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

trial  in  our  own  country.  There  we  see  large- 
scale  experimentation  with  appreciable  results,  and 
gain  a  criterion  for  testing  the  worth  of  our  own 
gropings.  There  we  learn  what  painstaking  study 
of  the  business  world  must  precede  the  drafting 
of  a  successful  program. 

Trade  schools  for  beginners  may  undertake  to 
supplant  or  to  supplement  apprenticeship.  Ger- 
man schools  belong  as  a  rule  to  the  second, 
French,  to  thefirst,  class.  Among  German  schools 
there  are  two  types:  the  Berlin  continuation 
school,  which  supplements  apprenticeship  by  gen- 
eral intelligence  courses  and  relies  upon  the  child's 
labor  in  his  master's  shop  to  give  him  trade  prac- 
tice ;  and  the  Munich  institution,  which  includes 
practical  work  in  the  curriculum. 

These  three  forms  of  the  industrial  school  are 
the  product  of  equally  distinct  ideals.  That  of  the 
French  educator  is  a  skilled  artisan  ;  Berlin  has 
in  view  a  well-informed  worker;  while  Munich 
strives  to  produce  a  useful  man. 

/.    Paris 

At  thirteen,  the  Parisian  child  of  poor  parents, 
having  mastered  the  three  R's  and  got  a  smatter- 
ing of  French  history,  completes  his  required 
schooling.  A  few  years  ago  only  two  courses  then 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

opened  before  him  :  to  go  at  once  to  work  or  to 
continue  a  purely  academic  education  through 
the  public  high  school  and  fit  himself  for  com- 
merce or  clerical  positions.  But  this  was  at  last 
found  unsatisfactory.  The  majority  of  French 
children,  as  is  true  of  children  in  any  other  land, 
are  destined  for  industry.  The  schools  not  only 
failed  to  train  them  for  this,  but  actually  rendered 
them  unwilling  to  do  manual  work  for  a  living. 
Despising  their  only  means  of  subsistence,  hun- 
dreds of  girls  went  on  the  streets  to  avoid  "  de- 
grading drudgery," *  and  thousands  of  boys  found 
themselves  unable  to  obtain  places  in  the  al- 
ready overcrowded  clerical  and  professional  field. 
Meanwhile  there  developed  in  industry  a  crisis 
unparalleled  in  the  history  of  other  countries 
and  threatening  to  destroy  the  century-long 
French  preeminence  in  hand  industries.  Appren- 
ticeship had  become  a  dead  letter  and  speciali- 
zation had  so  degraded  the  quality  of  labor  that 
employers  were  confronted  by  an  absolute  lack 
of  skilled  workers.  Meanwhile  the  colleges  were 
turning  out  theorists  and  overseers,  who  found 
themselves  in  the  anomalous  position  of  hav- 
ing no   one  to  oversee.    On  the  other  hand, 

1  See  Prostitution  des  En/ants,  Eugene  Prevost,  Avocat  a 
la  Cour  d'Appel,  Paris.  1909. 

Ill 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

unemployment  assumed  the  proportions  of  a 
Problem. 

In  the  face  of  German  competition,  public  in- 
terest rose  to  fever  heat  and  so  remains  to  the 
present  day.  All  over  France  trade  schools  have 
been  established  which  aim  to  meet  the  desire 
for  popular  education,  and  to  replace  the  old- 
time  apprenticeship  as  a  preparation  for  business. 
These  have  proved  utterly  inadequate  in  number 
to  supply  the  demand  for  skilled  workers.  The 
situation  is  aggravated  by  two  imperfections  in 
the  child  labor  laws,  which  have,  on  the  one 
hand,  allowed  many  children  to  work  before  they 
have  acquired  the  rudiments  of  an  education ; 
and,  on  the  other,  forced  them,  as  is  indeed  the 
case  in  our  own  country,  into  the  lowest  of  un- 
skilled labor  which  offers  no  prospect  of  advance- 
ment and  substantially  unfits  the  little  worker 
for  other  and  better  paid  positions. 

Alarmist  literature  and  agitated  discussion  of 
the  subject  abound,  discussion  originating  with 
educators,  employers,  and  social  students  alike. 
A  special  League  for  the  Encouragement  of 
Apprenticeship  has  been  formed.  The  only  ele- 
ment, in  fact,  which  is  not  yet  fully  aroused  to 
the  necessity  for  trade  instruction  is  organized 
labor ;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  unions  do  not 
112 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

object  to  trade  schools  per  se,  but  fear  that  the 
capitalists  will  use  them  to  train  cheap  labor  to 
complete  with  union  workers.1 

Meanwhile  a  fire  of  criticism,  favorable  and 
adverse,  is  directed  toward  the  elementary 
schools  now  in  existence.  It  is  with  this  voca- 
tional school  for  the  plain  man,  with  the  actual 
classroom  experience  of  its  pupils  and  the  proved 
successes  and  failures  of  this  experience  as  a  pre- 
paration for  trade  life,  that  the  present  chapter 
is  concerned.  Paris  boasts  fourteen  such  institu- 
tions 2  which  children  may  enter  upon  completion 
of  the  grammar  grades,  each  having  for  its  object 
the  training,  not  of  overseers,  but  of  ordinary 
workmen. 

In  the  land  which,  next  to  Italy,  has  made  art 
most  nearly  conterminous  with  life  and  which 
has  more  than  once  in  philosophy  and  govern- 

1  In  Paris  124  out  of  229  trade  unions  voted  in  favor  of 
trade  school  work. 

2  For  boys :  courses  in  the  metal  trades,  pattern-making, 
decorative  art,  industrial  design,  pottery,  sculpture,  cabinet- 
making,  surveying,  mechanics,  electricity,  and  the  book  in- 
dustries. 

For  girls :  trade  and  domestic  science  work,  including  cut- 
ting, sewing,  lingerie,  tailoring,  embroidery,  pressing,  corsets, 
vests,  artificial  flowers,  industrial  design,  pottery,  fine  art,  book- 
making,  typewriting,  stenography,  laundry  work,  general  house- 
work and  cooking. 

113 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

ment  pushed  symmetry  to  the  breaking  point, 
one  finds,  naturally  enough,  the  two  salient 
features  of  the  schools  to  be  emphasis  upon  ar- 
tistic values  and  close  correlation  of  all  parts  of 
the  curriculum.  Both  these  features  are  particu- 
larly marked  in  the  Ecole  Estienne,  a.  boys'  school 
devoted  to  all  trades  connected  with  book- 
making. 

A  glance  at  the  course  of  study  brings  home 
the  complexity  of  the  business  world  which  the 
pupils  enter  upon  graduation.  The  subject  of 
typography  comprises  four  distinct  trades :  type- 
setting, type-founding,  printing,  and  stereotyp- 
ing. Lithography  is  split  into  lithography  proper, 
lithographic  script,  stone  engraving,  and  litho- 
graphic printing.  Engraving  covers  wood  engrav- 
ing, engraving  in  relief,  copper  plate,  and  photo- 
engraving, and  printing  from  copperplate;  while 
binding  is  divided  into  binding  and  gilding.  Four 
years  of  eleven  months  each  are  required  to  gain 
a  certificate  of  apprenticeship  in  any  of  these 
trades.  Sunday  is  the  only  holiday  and  the  school 
holds  from  8.30  in  the  morning  till  6  at  night. 

The  mornings  are  devoted  to  theoretical  work  : 

the  afternoons,  to  practical  instruction,  except 

for  a  slight  preponderance  of  practice  in  the  last 

years.  Each  trade  has  its  own  shop  for  practical 

114 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

work  in  charge  of  special  instructors,  and  during 
the  first  four  months  of  the  term,  the  new  pupils 
attend  in  rotation  all  the  workshops  in  the  school 
and  thus  make  choice  of  a  profession. 

In  spite  of  the  complexity  of  the  problem,  the 
course  of  study  is  a  coherent  unit.  The  morning 
lessons  in  theory  (comprising  French,  general 
history,  geography,  history  of  art  and  of  the  book 
industry,  mathematics,  physics,  chemistry,  zool- 
ogy, drawing,  modeling,  writing,  and  original 
design)  are  the  same  for  all  pupils  in  the  first 
two  years.  In  the  third  and  fourth  years,  pupils 
are  grouped  in  three  sections  which  handle  sub- 
jects bearing  most  directly  upon  the  individual 
trades.  In  the  case  of  the  lithographers,  en- 
gravers, and  gilders,  designing  predominates ; 
with  the  typesetters,  it  is  French,  and  general 
information ;  while  the  printers  and  founders 
study  in  more  detail  physics,  chemistry,  and 
mechanics.  This  orientation  of  theory  towards 
practice  does  not  begin  in  the  third  year,  how- 
ever. With  the  opening  of  the  first  year,  the 
pupil  finds  that  what  he  learns  in  one  course  is 
not  so  much  isolated  knowledge,  to  be  saved  up 
till  that  class  and  its  quizzes  come  round  again, 
but  something  he  will  take  up  and  use  when  the 
bell  has  tapped  and  his  next  period  begins. 
"5 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

The  principles  of  plane  geometry  as  studied  in 
the  first  year  are  applied,  in  the  courses  for  geo- 
metrical design,  to  the  composition  of  vignettes, 
margins,  and  covers.  Flowers,  treated  scientifi- 
cally in  botany  under  one  instructor,  are  drawn 
and  modeled  from  nature  in  other  classes  ;  form 
the  subjects  for  the  conventionalized  tail-pieces, 
illuminations  and  fancy  initials  which  the  stu- 
dents design  in  the  third  and  fourth  years  under 
a  still  different  teacher ;  and  are  then  used  as 
working  plans  in  shop  practice.  The  different 
styles  discussed  in  lectures  on  the  history  of  art 
are  actually  copied  in  drawing-class  ;  are  modern- 
ized and  adapted  to  the  needs  and  materials  of 
particular  trades  as  original  designs ;  and  then 
put  to  use  in  the  various  ateliers.  Where  the 
designs  for  shopwork  are  not  made  in  the  draw- 
ing-class, they  are  still  made  by  the  pupil  him- 
self and  are  applications  of  the  principles  there 
laid  down.  Although  they  also  set  up  after  mod- 
els, typesetters  often  design  their  "ad's"  and 
pages ;  gilders,  their  stamps  ;  and  type-founders, 
their  fancy  type ;  while  engravers  execute  their 
own  drawings.  Physics  and  chemistry  are  not 
only  taught  parallel  with  botany  and  zoology, 
where  they  are  of  constant  use  in  explaining  the 
phenomena  of  growth  and  decay,  but  are  made  to 
116 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

apply  to  the  concrete  problems  of  photography, 
engraving,  etching,  founding,  and  machine  opera- 
tion. History  and  geography  are  connected  in 
like  manner.  History  and  the  history  of  art  are 
made  interdependent.  The  history  of  the  book 
industry  draws  from  both  sources.  Classes  in 
French  utilize  material  from  every  other  depart- 
ment for  composition  subjects,  for  dictation,  and 
for  illustration  of  grammatical  rules.  In  short, 
what  is  learned  in  the  theoretical  courses  under 
one  teacher  is  applied  in  an  original  design  under 
another,  and  in  the  afternoon,  put  into  practice 
in  the  workshops.  The  constant  effort  is  to  de- 
velop originality  and  creative  power  in  each 
pupil,  and,  because  the  whole  course  hangs  to- 
gether, he  is  helped  to  constructive  thinking 
which  will  make  connections  for  itself.  The 
children  see  where  their  work  is  tending  and  of 
what  practical  use  it  will  be  to  them.  They  are 
therefore  interested  and  intelligent.  Because 
everything  they  turn  out  in  the  shops  represents 
their  cumulative  effort,  they  take  that  pride  in 
the  finish  and  artistic  quality  of  their  product 
which  has  hitherto  given  to  French  hand  indus- 
tries world-wide  supremacy. 

A  further  correlation  takes  place  between  the 
practical  work  in  separate  trades.  The  printers 
117 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

use  in  their  presses  what  the  compositors  have 
set  up  with  type  from  the  founding  class.  This 
is  illustrated  by  the  engravers  with  cuts  used  in 
the  courses  for  impression  taking.  Perhaps  the 
printed  book  or  pamphlet  then  goes  to  the  bind- 
ing-rooms and  is  at  last  finished  and  gilded  by 
pupils  in  still  another  trade.  Thus,  not  only  does 
each  pupil  feel  that  his  work  has  a  definite  prac- 
tical outcome,  but  a  whole  class  may  work  to- 
gether to  produce  that  which  can  be  put  to  direct 
use  somewhere  else,  and  ultimately  serve  to 
arouse  esprit' de  corps  in  the  entire  school  body. 

Examination  of  the  work  of  the  different  de- 
partments shows  how  closely  consideration  for 
artistic  values  is  woven  into  every  portion  of  the 
individual  courses.  Each  practice  class  spends  a 
large  portion  of  its  time  in  considering  the 
special  art  problems  of  its  trade.  The  pupil  must 
learn  to  reproduce  the  ordinary  objects  of  his 
drawing-class  with  the  tools  of  his  calling :  the 
graver's  awl,  the  lithographer's  pencil,  the  gilder's 
stamp.  He  must  apply  here,  through  a  new  me- 
dium, the  principles  of  beauty  he  has  elsewhere 
evolved,  and  is  brought  to  see  that  a  catalogue, 
a  poster,  an  advertisement,  is  governed  by  the 
same  laws  as  the  painter's  masterpiece. 

In  the  itcole  Boulle  are  taught  the  marvelously 
118 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

many  trades  involved  in  the  making  of  a  single 
piece  of  furniture,  beginning  with  the  designing 
and  following  through  the  making  of  the  frame, 
the  molding  in  plaster  of  the  prospective  orna- 
ment, the  actual  carving  of  the  wood  after  the 
plaster  model,  the  inlay,  and  the  iron,  brass,  and 
nickel  work,  down  to  the  polishing  and  varnish- 
ing. Here,  too,  the  emphasis  is  upon  the  artistic 
and  creative  sides  of  production.  Mr.  Brizon 
states  the  purpose  of  the  school  to  be  "  to  train 
workers  able  to  conserve  the  traditions  of  taste 
and  the  superiority  of  the  peculiarly  Parisian  in- 
dustry of  artistic  furniture."  To  conserve  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  glorious  past  in  French  furniture, 
the  school  has  a  special  exhibit  room  illustrating 
various  styles  famous  in  the  history  of  the  indus- 
try. This  set  of  replicas,  made  in  the  school,  is 
supplemented  by  a  collection  of  casts  representing 
types  of  ornamentation.  In  speaking  of  the  equip- 
ment of  any  Parisian  school,  one  must  always 
bear  in  mind  the  great  museums  of  the  Louvre 
and  of  Cluny,  which  are  arranged  to  be  patently 
educative  and  which  are  used  much  more  exten- 
sively for  school  purposes  than  any  remotely 
comparable  American  collections.  All  these  fac- 
tors skillfully  employed  by  the  teacher  of  art 
an4  industrial  history,  serve  to  steep  the  pupil, 
H9 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

not  only  in  ideas,  but  in  the  fact  and  spirit  of  his 
trade  as  an  artistic  development.  The  last  year 
of  the  course  is  devoted  to  modern  styles  in  fur- 
niture-making, and  the  pupils  are  encouraged  to 
create  for  themselves,  on  simple  lines,  designs 
which  sustain  the  standards  and  modernize  the 
spirit  of  the  great  artists  with  whose  work  they 
have  become  familiar. 

This  effort  on  the  part  of  the  instructors  in 
art  fits  compactly  into  the  scheme  of  the  practice 
work,  in  every  branch  of  which  the  pupils  execute 
after  approved  models  for  the  first  two  years  and 
design  for  themselves  during  the  last.  This  plan 
is  intended  to  combat  the  disintegrating  tenden- 
cies in  modernrfurniture-making  —  slavish  imita- 
tion of  old  models  and  flashy  novelty  in  orna- 
mentation. It  is  hoped  that  by  a  study  of  the 
history  and  theory  of  former  styles,  the  pupils 
will  be  led  to  imitate,  not  the  patterns,  but  the 
spirit  and  the  methods  of  the  old  masters;  and, 
in  the  same  way  that  Louis  XIV's  great  cabinet- 
maker, Boulle,  developed  a  style  appropriate  to 
the  civilization  in  which  he  lived,  themselves 
come  to  understand  what  is  suited  to  the  life  of 
the  modern  household. 

The  course  in  wood  carving  illustrates  the 
general  plan  of  treating  art  in  connection  with 
120 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

practice.  The  elementary  exercises  are  naturally 
directed  toward  the  mastery  of  tools  and  mate- 
rials. When  a  tolerable  degree  of  skill  is  acquired, 
the  pupil  begins  to  design  for  himself.  Suppose 
a  chair  is  given  for  decoration.  He  applies  what 
he  has  learned  in  drawing  to  make  a  sketch  for 
the  proposed  ornamentation  of  a  leg.  This  he 
must  model  in  clay  to  get  a  good  idea  of  the  form 
and  test  the  applicability  of  his  flat  design  to 
sculptured  relief.  He  then  makes  a  plaster  cast 
of  his  corrected  model  and  from  this  pattern  ex- 
ecutes his  carving.  More  advanced  students  carve 
from  a  sketch  without  plaster  pattern,  but  not 
until  their  sense  of  form  and  body  is  as  well  de- 
veloped as  that  of  outline. 

Not  only  is  every  course  in  every  Parisian  school 
colored  by  regard  for  artistic  values,1  but  the  aim 
is  also  to  combat  specialization  in  its  narrowest 
sense..  The  hours  devoted  to  practical  instruction 
are  not  exclusively  occupied  by  bench  work,  but 
comprise  the  technical  instruction  necessary  to  a 
perfect  understanding  of  the  work  in  hand  in  its 
relation  to  the  trade  as  a  whole.  The  effort  is  also  • 
toward  varied  practice.  The  copper-plate  printer  in 
the  £cole  Estienne,  for  example,  is  given  practice 

1  There  are  also  successful  schools  for  both  boys  and  girls 
which  teach  industrial  design  as  a  special  trade. 
121 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

on  job  work  as  well  as  Editions  de  luxe,  on  visiting- 
cards  and  bills,  on  illustrations  and  maps,  whereas, 
were  he  serving  an  apprenticeship  in  a  shop,  he 
would  learn  only  the  specialty  of  that  shop. 
Courses  for  artificial  flower-makers  teach,  like- 
wise, all  sorts  of  flowers,  on  the  branch,  after  na- 
ture, and  for  the  modes.  The  student  of  jewelry 
specializes  at  either  the  hand  or  machine  process, 
but  becomes  familiar  with  both  methods,  as  well 
as  with  the  manufacture  of  the  stamps  used. 
General  trade  intelligence  and  not  particular 
manual  skill  is  the  end  in  view ;  yet  the  proper 
basis  for  manual  dexterity  is  given  in  the  thor- 
ough understanding  of  all  processes  and  in  the 
constant  use  of  real  machines  and  real  trade* 
materials. 

Teaching  a  complementary  trade  not  closely 
Allied  to  one's  specialty  is  a  feature  peculiar  to 
the  Ecole  Boulle.  This  is  the  same  for  all  pupils 
— hammered  brass  and  copper.  The  children 
spend  an  hour  a  week  for  three  years  at  this, 
and  while  they  do  not  attain  great  skill,  they  are 
capable  of  turning  what  they  learn  to  practical 
use  in  case  work  fails  them  at  any  time  in  their 
trade.  This  brass  and  copper  practice  was  chosen 
both  on  account  of  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  some  degree  of  proficiency  can  be  acquired 

122 


FOREIGN   TRADE  SCHOOLS 

and  because  the  recent  revival  of  interest  in  hand- 
hammered  goods  gives  certainty  of  finding  odd 
jobs. 

As  attendance  upon  trade  schools  is  not  com- 
pulsory in  France,  sweeping  inferences  as  to  re- 
sults are  dangerous.  Some  phenomena  are,  how- 
ever, obviously  attendant  upon  the  foundation  of 
trade  schools.  The  school  enrollment  has  risen 
greatly ;  and  the  percentage  of  daily  attendance 
and  the  ratio  of  graduation  to  first  year  enroll- 
ment is  higher  for  vocational  than  for  academic 
schools.  M.  Brizon  quotes  in  his  Apprenticeship: 
Yesterday —  Today — To-morrow,  the  opinions 
of  employers  and  educators  that  the  ultimate 
wage-earning  capacity  of  the  trade  school  grad- 
uate is  considerably  above  that  of  the  average  ap- 
prentice. A  majority  of  the  Parisian  manufac- 
turers' associations  have  unanimously  expressed 
themselves  as  favoring  public  industrial  educa- 
tion, but  their  commendation  of  the  ideal  is  tinged 
with  an  ever-recurring  criticism  of  present  trade 
school  methods.  The  furniture  workers  maintain 
that,  although  the  trade  school  graduate  is  less 
adroit  at  first,  because  of  his  general  education  he 
is  better  later  on  than  an  apprentice.  The  heavy- 
iron  workers  find  that,  though  in  the  end  he  shows 
himself  more  intelligent,  the  trade  school  youth 
123 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

is  at  first  wasteful  and  hence  paid  less  than  an 
apprentice  who  has  been  in  industry  while  his 
colleague  was  at  school.  Dressmakers  prefer 
trade  school  graduates  because  they  produce  at 
once ;  jewelers,  because  they  are  all-round  work- 
men. But  printers,  photographers,  and  engravers 
prefer  apprentices  who  take  prof essio7ial  courses  in 
connection  with  trade  work,  because  they  are 
swifter.  "Trade  graduates  have  had  too  little 
practical  work."  The  Council  of  Makers  of  In- 
struments of  Precision  sum  up  the  problem  in 
saying  that  if  graduates  of  trade  schools  are  will- 
ing to  begin  at  the  bottom  and  put  themselves 
au  courant  with  the  trade,  they  become  better 
workers  than  those  who  have  not  had  school 
training ;  but  that  often  they  are  not  willing  to 
do  this  and  are  then  too  theoretical. 
«/  In  short,  there  is  a  gap  between  the  French 
trade  school  and  business  conditions  which  the 
trade  graduate  must  bridge  for  himself;  and  the 
spirit  of  the  school  often  unfits  pupils  for  bridg- 
ing it.  In  spite  of  the  studied  symmetry  of  the 
course ;  in  spite  of  the  cultural  and  intellectual 
value  of  the  three  or  four  years  spent  in  the 
classroom  ;  in  spite  of  the  general  trade  intelli- 
gence the  pupil  has  gained ;  —  in  spite  of  all 
these  undeniable  assets,  he  enters  industry 
124 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

handicapped.  He  is  unaccustomed  to  conditions 
of  work  in  a  shop  where  competition  forces 
economy  of  time  and  material.  He  is  exquisitely 
careful  in  the  execution  of  his  tasks,  but  is 
neither  speedy  nor  dexterous,  and  these  latter 
failings  account  for  the  dissatisfaction  of  so 
many  an  employer  with  trade  school  pupils. 

One  solution  of  this  difficulty  is  offered  by  the 
school  for  girls  in  Fondary  Street,  which  teaches 
the  distinctly  feminine  occupations  of  sewing, 
tailoring,  millinery,  and  laundry  work.  The  aca- 
demic side  of  this  and  similar  institutions  is 
neither  so  varied  nor  so  thorough  as  in  the  boys' 
schools,  because  girls  are  not  expected  to  make 
such  serious  use  of  it  and  do  not  often  engage  in 
professions  demanding  high-grade  intelligence. 
But  an  especial  effort  is  here  made  to  keep  in 
touch  with  actual  trade  conditions  by  having  the 
senior  pupils  fill  orders  for  the  clients  of  their 
several  departments.  This  insures  variety  in  work 
and  gives  interest  in  saving  time  and  material 
and  in  the  quality  of  the  output.  The  difference 
between  the  courses  which  follow  a  clientele  and 
those  in  which  the  children  work  on  models  and 
with  sham  materials  is  striking.  Nowhere  in  the 
former  is  that  slackness  and  waste  of  material 
evident  which  marked  each  course  of  the  latter 
125 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

type  visited.  The  school  in  Fondary  Street  has 
the  aspect  of  a  select  shop.  As  in  all  Parisian 
schools  which  sell  their  products,  prices  are 
everywhere  a  little  higher  than  those  on  the 
regular  market,  since  they  are  fixed  to  cover 
the  increased  cost  of  production  in  a  schoolroom 
where  work  is  slow  and  the  factory  foremen  are 
replaced  by  high-priced  teachers. 

The  League  for  the  Encouragement  of  Ap- 
prentices proposes  another  remedy  for  the  all 
too  evident  cleavage  between  schooling  and  prac- 
tice :  i.  e.,  part-time  day  schools  compulsory  for 
apprentices  in  industry  and  in  charge  of  men 
with  extensive  trade  experience.  In  other  words, 
this  League,  which  has  studied  more  thoroughly 
than  any  other  agency  the  business  and  educa- 
tional aspects  of  the  French  situation,  looks  to 
Germany  for  the  solution  of  its  problems. 

//  Berlin 

While  trade  schools  in  France  have  been  the 
slow  response  to  a  crying  need,  the  German  sys- 
tem of  education  is  more  truly  the  result  of  fore- 
sight. To  understand  any  German  institution, 
we  must  remember  that  for  what  many  another 
nation  owes  to  haphazard  growth  through  the 
ages,  the  Teutonic  empire  must  thank  the  sys- 
126 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

tematic  plans  of  her  rulers,  who.,  within  a  cen- 
tury and  by  a  concerted  scheme  of  action,  have 
developed  Germany  from  a  group  of  negligible 
petty  kingdoms  to  one  of  the  foremost  world 
powers.  In  this  development,  the  industrial  and 
commercial  policy  of  the  government  has  had,  if 
not  the  title  rdle,  at  least  that  of  principal  sup- 
port. Political  integrity  was  not  enough.  Ger- 
many must  be  both  industrially  self-sufficient 
and  necessary  to  the  consuming  world  at  large. 
As  every  young  German  is  trained  to  defend  his 
country  in  time  of  war,  so  is  he  also  trained  to 
defend  her  in  the  markets  of  the  world  in  times 
of  peace.  That  this  program  has  been  success- 
ful is  attested  by  the  rapid  commercial  advance 
of  this  newest  of  nations.  Not  only  does  Ger- 
many produce  an  amazing  proportion  of  what 
it  uses,  but  German  goods  have  captured  the 
French  market  and  are  invading  even  England 
and  the  United  States.  We  buy  hundreds  of 
articles  whose  label,  "  Made  in  Germany,"  may 
be  a  lie  about  the  place  of  manufacture,  but  is 
no  uncertain  hint  as  to  where  they  should  have 
been  made  to  secure  first  quality.  In  the  words 
of  a  French  student,  —  and  the  French,  oddly 
enough,  are  Germany's  most  appreciative  critics, 
—  "Germans  lack  initiative  and  inventiveness, 
127 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

but  these  things  are  trained  little  by  little  into 
the  people  by  a  system  of  education  ever  on  the 
alert  to  inculcate  good  methods  of  work.  The 
results  which  Germany  has  obtained  she  owes 
largely  to  scientific  methods." 

Of  course  a  deal  of  cheap  nonsense  is  talked 
about  the  prosperity  of  the  Fatherland.  Ger- 
many is  not  yet  the  modern  Eden,  or  else  the 
tide  of  immigration  —  that  most  delicate  indus- 
trial barometer  —  would  set  away  from  the 
United  States  and  toward  our  martial  cousins. 
Though  she  manages  to  tuck  them  effectually 
out  of  sight,  Germany  still  has  her  poor  and  sin- 
ning. But  the  traveler  must  be  impressed  by 
the  solid  aspect  of  German  towns,  by  their  inner 
strength  and  self-sufficient  Germanness,  and  by 
the  absence  of  that  pitiful  catering  to  tourists 
which  marks  the  decadence  of  Paris.  Even  the 
tiniest  stores  have  tasteful  show  windows  ar- 
ranged with  remarkable  sense  of  color  and  pro- 
portion. Far  more  extraordinary  than  the  lovely 
flower  displays,  which  brighten  many  a  grim  side 
street  with  the  sunshine  of  daffodils  and  mari- 
golds, is  the  beauty  of  dairies  and  butcher  shops, 
recalling,  by  their  profusion  of  herbs,  jellies,  sau- 
sages, fruit  and  game,  some  splendid  still  life  by 
Fyt. 

128 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

One  involuntarily  asks  oneself  where  that 
dumpy  little  fellow  in  the  linen  apron,  who  has 
come  out  to  eye  his  wares  critically  from  the 
curbing,  ever  caught  the  knack.  He  would  be 
prompt  enough  in  his  answer  if  the  question 
were  put  to  him :  "  In  the  continuation  school 
for  butchers." 

The  French  system  of  trade  schools  may  be 
termed  optional  supplanting  of  apprenticeship. 
The  German  is  a  compulsory  supplementing  of 
it,  and  to  the  continuation  schools  of  Berlin  must 
go  every  boy  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
seventeen,  who  is  at  work  in  commerce  or  trade.1 
The  six  hours  a  week  devoted  to  schooling  are 
usually  taken  from  the  working  day  and  the  em- 
ployer is  made  responsible  for  his  apprentice's 
school  attendance.  Some  courses  are  given  on 
Sunday,  others  at  night,  but  there  is  a  strong 
movement  on  foot  to  bring  all  classes  into  the 
daytime  and,  where  possible,  into  the  morning 
schedule. 

Since  the  age  qualification  is  the  only  require- 
ment (completion  of  the  grammar  grades  being 
entirely  beside  the  question),  the  continuation 
schools  receive  pupils  at  widely  different  stages 
of  advancement.  The  boys  in  each  year  are  there- 

1  It  is  hoped  soon  to  extend  this  compulsion  to  girls  as  well. 
129 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

fore  grouped,  according  to  their  preparation,  in 
three  sections,  work  for  which  follows  the  same 
general  plan,  with  special  adaptations  as  the 
needs  suggest,  makes  up  for  past  deficiencies, 
and  carries  the  pupils  forward  as  far  as  is  com- 
patible with  thoroughness  in  every  inch  of  ground 
covered.  A  typical  continuation  school  in  the 
Moabit  district  offers  six  hour  per  week  courses 
for  machinists,  locksmiths,  merchants,  crafts- 
men, and  unskilled  workers  such  as  errand  boys. 
Instruction  in  the  five  departments  is  entirely 
separate.  There  is  no  practical  work  in  the 
school;  manual  skill  and  knowledge  of  trade  pro- 
cesses the  child  must  pick  up  under  his  em- 
ployer. The  school  continues  the  work  of  the 
grammar  grades  with  special  application  to  the 
trade  at  which  the  pupil  works ;  gives  general 
historical  and  technical  information  about  this 
trade ;  and  familiarizes  the  pupil  with  the  laws 
governing  it  and  with  his  own  relation  to  the 
city,  state,  and  nation.  To  impart  general  infor- 
mation in  such  a  way  that  the  child  will  apply  it 
to  his  work  and  his  social  relations  is,  in  short, 
the  ideal. 

The  instruction    comprises   German,    civics, 
technology,  mathematics,  bookkeeping,  and  draw- 
ing. The  drawing  differs  with  the  department. 
130 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

Machinists  begin  with  the  principles  of  mechani- 
cal drawing  and  pass  to  copying  separate  parts 
from  machines  used  in  their  respective  trades. 
These  models  are  chosen  for  their  typical  value 
in  machine  construction  as  well  as  for  training 
in  drawing.  Finally  entire  machines  are  copied, 
and  the  apprentice  who,  in  industry,  is  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  of  some  infinitesimal  part  of  an 
object,  learns  the  connection  of  that  part  with 
the  whole.  The  pupils  thus  understand  without 
explanation  specification  drawings  given  them 
in  the  shop  or  factory ;  and  as  ability  to  sketch 
a  desired  machine  is  essential  in  a  foreman  or 
upper  grade  practical  machinist,  this  course  in 
drawing  is  the  initial  step  in  advancement  for 
the  cleverer  pupils. 

The  work  connects  directly  with  the  course  in 
technology,  which  is  really  the  nucleus  of  the 
entire  curriculum.  Here  are  studied  trade  ma- 
terials, their  origin  and  uses ;  the  main  operations 
of  the  trade ;  the  principles  governing  them ;  the 
finished  products  and  their  uses;  marketing  and 
prices.  A  painter  must  learn  all  his  implements 
and  the  special  uses  of  the  different  kinds  of 
brushes  and  colors.  He  must  understand  the 
manufacture  and  the  blending  of  oils.  He  can 
tell  from  what  flax-seed  oil  is  made ;  can  describe 
131 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

the  plant  and  its  culture  ;  knows  where  it  grows 
and  the  color  of  its  blossom,  for  he  has  seen  it 
in  the  school  collection,  and  drawn  it  for  his  de- 
signing class  ;  and  can  tell  other  uses  of  the  flax 
plant.  He  learns  the  relative  cost  and  value  of 
different  oils  and  can  explain  these  facts  intelli- 
gibly. In  short,  everything  which  enters  into  a 
trade  must  be  thoroughly  understood  not  only 
in  that  specific  connection,  but  in  all  other  con- 
nections. As  one  readily  sees,  this  gives  oppor- 
tunity for  imparting  varied  information  of  a 
popular  and  scientific  kind,  and  instruction  in 
industrial  history  and  geography  is  here  intro- 
duced. The  teacher  keeps  in  mind  the  fact  that 
he  is  not  only  training  labor  but  educating  men, 
and  while  the  trade  is  the  pivot  of  the  course, 
the  importance  of  mental  drill  and  culture  is  not 
forgotten. 

Mathematics  follows  upon  the  class  in  tech- 
nology and  is  directly  dependent  upon  it  for  sub- 
ject-matter. After  the  class  has  studied  a  given 
material,  all  possible  problems  which  might  arise 
any  day  in  connection  with  it  are  solved.  The 
text-book  is  thoroughly  practical,  having  been 
prepared  by  educators  and  business  men  in  col- 
laboration, and  its  success  is  attested  by  the 
keen  interest  of  even  the  dullest  pupils.  Each 
132 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

boy  is  required  to  keep  an  account-book  for  a 
firm  doing  business  in  his  line. 

German  is  presented  in  the  form  of  business 
correspondence,  but  all  the  courses  are,  in  a  man- 
ner, training  in  the  proper  use  of  language,  as  no 
pupil  is  allowed  to  respond  in  less  than  a  com- 
plete, correct  sentence. 

The  continuation  school  trains  the  man  at  the^ 
machine.  For  the  ambitious  worker  who  wishes 
to  rise  in  the  industrial  ranks,  there  is  the  higher 
trade  school  represented  by  the  Berliner  Tischler 
Schule,  whose  purpose  is  to  give  cabinetmakers, 
who  have  already  for  several  years  engaged  in 
the  practice  of  their  trade,  an  opportunity  to 
round  out  by  exercises  in  joinery  their  one-sided 
training  due  to  present-day  specialization.  It  is  a 
day  school  with  a  two  year  course  (open  to  per- 
sons who  have  completed  a  two  year  apprentice- 
ship), including  recitation  and  practice  in  artistic 
joinery  and  in  the  use  of  machines,  study  of 
materials,  industrial  chemistry,  commercial  law, 
trade  mathematics,  and  industrial  design.  All 
the  pupils  have  attended  the  continuation  school 
during  their  apprenticeship,  but  wish  to  supple- 
ment the  exclusively  theoretical  training  there 
given  by  an  all-round  practice  which  they  cannot 
get  in  a  shop  or  factory  where  each  employee 
133 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

has  a  specialty  which  he  follows  year  after  year, 
and  where,  in  all  probability,  the  factory  itself 
deals  with  only  one  branch  of  the  trade.  There 
is  absolutely  no  specialization  in  the  school ;  each 
pupil  has  exercises  in  all  the  different  kinds  of 
joinery,  and  each  pupil  makes  a  whole  object, 
thus  practicing  all  the  trades  taught  separately  in 
the  Ecole  Boulle.  Coming,  as  the  training  does, 
at  the  end  of  apprenticeship,  it  makes  for  thor- 
oughness and  breadth,  and  exerts  an  unquestion- 
able influence  toward  mobility  of  labor  and 
lessened  unemployment. 

A  similar  institute  is  the  Hdhere  Weber 
Sc/iule,  open  to  women  as  well  as  men,  and  pre- 
senting courses  in  all  trades  for  the  manufacture 
and  use  of  textiles.  The  normal  length  of  the 
course  is  three  years,  but  many  pupils  attend 
merely  a  trimester  to  learn  some  new  machine  or 
process.  The  author  expressed  surprise  at  seeing 
men  and  women  advanced  in  years  working  side 
by  side  with  younger  pupils,  and  was  told  that 
women  thrown  on  their  own  resources  often  come 
here  to  learn  a  trade ;  and  that  men,  out  of  em- 
ployment in  their  own  specialty  and  too  old  to 
be  taken  as  apprentices  in  industry,  acquire  in 
the  Weber  Schule  a  new  speciality  and  so  con- 
tinue self-supporting. 

134 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

The  flexibility  of  the  German,  as  compared 
with  the  French  system  of  industrial  education, 
is  here  apparent.  There  is  no  rigid  term  of  work 
and  no  general  plan  of  instruction  applied  to 
each  department  and  making  of  the  entire  school 
a  symmetrical  organization.  On  the  contrary,  the 
theoretical  instruction  is  separate  for  each  branch. 
The  division  of  time  between  practice  and  theory 
and  the  length  of  the  courses  vary  with  the  re- 
spective trades.  The  emphasis  everywhere  put 
upon  drawing,  and  the  cooperation  between  de- 
partments which  carry  out  and  finish  each  other's 
work,  remind  one  of  the  French  program.  But 
the  methods  and  spirit  of  the  art  departments 
are  diverse.  Whether  their  contrasting  atmos- 
phere is  due  to  a  corresponding  difference  in  na- 
tional temper  is  hard  to  determine.  The  German 
course  is  likely  to  stress  at  every  point  trade  util- 
ity ;  while,  in  France,  one  begins  in  the  realm 
of  pure  art  and  takes  the  application  to  the  par- 
ticular industry  as  an  outgrowth  of  this. 

In  comparison  with  the  continuation  school 
previously  discussed,  the  pendulum  here  swings 
almost  as  far  toward  practice  as  it  swung  there 
toward  theory.  General  branches  are  taught  as 
a  running  accompaniment  to  bench  work  and  an 
effort  is  made  to  gain  speed  and  dexterity.  This 
135 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  presence  in  the 
classroom  of  workers  experienced  in  shop 
methods. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  Berlin  experiments 
in  industrial  education  is  the  so-called  practice 
workshop  for  artistic  wrought  iron,  machine  con- 
struction, and  manufacture  of  instruments  of  pre- 
cision, which  admits,  during  unemployment  or 
between  jobs,  workers  who  have  had  several 
years'  experience,  and  teaches  them  greater  skill 
in  their  specialty,  or  perhaps  more  of  the  trades 
in  general  from  a  theoretical  or  executive  stand- 
point than  they  can  learn  in  a  factory.  The  course 
lasts  ten  weeks,  but  workers  who  wish  to  become 
foremen  or  journeymen  ambitious  for  a  master- 
ship may  remain  longer.  These  latter  come  again 
and  again  to  the  school  and  ultimately  make 
their  "  masterpiece"  to  submit  to  the  committee 
chosen  by  their  trade  organization  to  pass  upon 
the  work  of  would-be  masters. 

Trade  education  for  girls  is  not  so  well  organ- 
ized in  Berlin  as  that  for  boys.  The  situation  is 
similar  to  that  in  America  :  woman's  position 
in  industry  is  far  from  settled  ;  the  "housewife 
ideal"  still  dominates  in  many  of  the  schools  and, 
in  others,  exerts  a  disturbing  influence  on  the 
regular  trade  courses.  Every  grade  of  institution, 
136 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

from  the  domestic  science  section  of  the  Pesta* 
lozzi-Froebel  Training  School  to  the  simplest  com- 
mercial course,  is  represented,  including  many 
which  are  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other,  but 
attempt  a  little  of  both.  Germany  has  not  yet 
taken  a  stand  on  the  woman  problem,  and  edu- 
cation is  temporizing  with  women  in  the  schools. 

III.   Munich 

The  journey  from  the  sandy  plains  of  Branden- 
burg to  the  brilliant  and  invigorating  upper  airs 
of  the  Bavarian  plateau  is  a  physical  change  which 
prepares  one  for  the  greater  crispness  and  verve 
of  the  Munich  school  method.  Here  the  German 
system  of  industrial  education  is  seen  at  its 
highest  point.  There  are  the  same  types  of  schools 
as  in  Berlin —  a  flexible  series  that  drills  the  man 
at  the  machine  and  still  gives  outlet  for  ability 
into  the  upper  ranks  of  industry.  But  the  age 
limit  for  compulsory  attendance  is  higher,  the 
hours  per  week  of  required  schooling,  which 
come  in  the  daytime,  are  never  less  than  eight, 
and  the  training  given  is  more  balanced  and 
complete. 

It  may  be  questioned  why  the  admittedly 
faulty  systems  of  Paris  and  Berlin  have  been 
described  at  the  expense  of  a  satisfactory  pro- 
137 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

gram  which  is  thus  relegated  to  a  few  concluding 
paragraphs.  The  reason  for  this  is  twofold.  Paris 
and  Berlin  represent  the  kinds  of  school  most 
common  in  America,  —  the  former  finding  its 
feeble  counterpart  in  the  Manhattan  Trade 
School  for  Girls,  the  Boston  Trade  School,  and 
the  new  Wisconsin  system  ;  and  the  latter  being 
reduplicated,  in  its  essential  features,  by  the 
recent  experiment  in  Fitchburg,  Massachusetts. 
Furthermore,  the  best  is  always  thrown  into 
sharper  relief  by  comparison  with  the  next  best, 
for  the  failures  of  the  one  illuminate  the  suc- 
cesses of  the  other. 

The  Munich  continuation  school  actively  em- 
bodies in  every  dot  and  iota  of  the  course  of 
study  Superintendent  Kerschensteiner's  phrase 
"maker  of  useful  men,"  or  better  still,  "usable 
men"  ;  and  in  the  clear  light  of  this  purpose,  the 
Berlin  program  seems  negative  and  wavering, 
a  weak  compromise  between  academic  and  trade 
ideals.  With  a  useful  man  in  view,  the  Bavarian 
school  tries  to  round  out  the  scrappy  shop  train- 
ing of  the  apprentice  with  such  studies  as  will 
give  him  a  grasp  on  his  whole  trade.  The  trade 
can  then  use  him  as  the  exigency  of  the  moment 
dictates.  This  grasp,  to  be  complete,  must  be  both 
theoretical  and  practical,  and  it  is  here  that  the 

138 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

Munich  educator  takes  issue  with  the  Berlin 
method.  Berlin  maintains  that  dexterity  in  tech- 
nical processes  can  be  acquired  only  in  the  factory, 
and  so  eliminates  practice  from  the  curriculum 
as  a  waste  of  valuable  time  better  spent  in  gen- 
eral academic  drill.  Munich  avers  that  unless 
the  child  is  introduced  in  school  to  all  the  pro- 
cesses of  his  trade,  the  greater  part  of  them  will 
always  remain  a  sealed  book  to  him,  and  he  will 
be,  not  at  all  "a  usable  man,"  but  a  narrow 
specialist,  a  miscroscopic  part  of  a  man,  useful  in 
a  very  limited  field.  Skill  he  can  learn  in  busi- 
ness as  need  arises,  but  preliminary  understand- 
ing of  trade  operations  he  must  get  in  school 
in  order  to  embrace  opportunities  for  acquiring 
skill  as  they  present  themselves. 

The  famous  Prank  Schule  gives  eight  to  thir- 
teen hour  continuation  courses  for  eleven  sepa- 
rate trades,  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  which 
is  that  for  locksmiths.  The  technology,  German, 
and  physics  recall  the  Berlin  schedule,  while 
physiology,  hygiene,  and  Bible  history  explain 
themselves.  Composition  deals  with  all  sorts  of 
documents  which  might  be  written  in  the  course 
of  the  trade.  The  German  gift  for  exhausting  a 
subject  without  killing  originality  is  manifested 
in  a  detailed  treatment  of  theme  work  seldom 
139 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

found  in  American  schools.  For  instance,  a  class, 
representing  a  master  locksmith,  has  written,  at 
its  last  session,  an  order  for  a  grindstone.  This 
stone  has  supposedly  been  delivered  in  bad  shape, 
a  crack  being  plainly  visible  at  its  center.  The 
manufacturing  firm  must  now  be  apprised  of  the 
receipt  of  the  stone,  of  its  condition  on  arrival,  of 
the  supposed  reasons  for  this  condition,  and  as 
to  whether  it  can  be  accepted  or  not.  All  these 
points  having  been  brought  out  by  class  discus- 
sion, they  are  put  upon  the  blackboard.  Several 
pupils  compose  orally  sentences  conveying  point 
one,  which  are  criticized  with  an  eye  to  grammar 
and  style  ;  and  when  each  point  has  been  thus 
handled,  a  few  oral  versions  for  the  whole  letter 
are  given.  At  a  final  signal,  the  boys  write  for 
themselves  the  proposed  letter,  which  is  subse- 
quently corrected  and  copied  into  a  notebook  for 
reference  when  the  pupil  is  in  business.  The  pace 
for  such  work  is  obviously  set  by  the  average, 
not  by  the  best  or  even  better  pupils ;  but  as  a 
result  of  this  insistent  thoroughness,  the  average 
rises  with  each  successive  year. 

First  and  second  year  mathematics  is   con- 
cerned with  reckoning  prices  and  materials.  Here 
a  remarkable  amount  of  elementary  economics 
enters  incidentally.  In  determining  the  price  to 
140 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

be  charged  for  certain  locks,  boys  of  fourteen 
handle  competition,  rent,  prime  costs,  profit,  cost 
of  living,  and  other  bugbears  of  the  college  stu- 
dent with  astounding  familiarity  and  intelligence. 
In  the  third  year,  bookkeeping  for  a  firm  of  lock- 
smiths is  taken  up. 

Much  that  is  done  in  drawing-class  is  used  in 
the  workshops.  The  course  aims  at  precision, 
and  at  understanding  the  specification  drawing, 
the  tool,  the  product,  and  the  principles  of  its 
construction. 

The  idea  of  the  shopwork  is  to  cover  the  most 
important  operations  of  the  trade  and  the  mani- 
pulation of  all  its  tools.  Under  this  system  few 
whole  objects  can  be  made,  but  there  is  talk  of 
having  the  pupils  make  one  complete  thing  in- 
stead of  so  many  typical  parts.  The  point  at  is- 
sue is  whether  what  they  lose  in  practice  will  be 
made  up  by  what  they  gain  in  sense  of  unity  and 
in  the  fineness  of  workmanship  which  comes  from 
pride  in  the  finished  product.  In  this  day  of  min- 
utely subdivided  toil  and  of  complete  separation 
of  the  worker  from  the  finished  product,  those 
two  points  have  educational  value  which  cannot 
be  overstated. 

In  the  trade  school  for  locksmiths  having  three 
or  four  years'  experience,  the  work  of  the  con- 
141 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

tinuation  school  is  carried  forward  with  more 
freedom  for  the  individual  to  develop  his  own 
ideas,  and  with  far  greater  emphasis  on  artistic 
production.  Mathematics  becomes  algebra  and 
geometry;  drawing  and  modeling  from  nature 
are  supplemented  by  lectures  on  the  history  of 
styles.  The  Museum  of  Industrial  Art  in  Munich 
offers  an  unparalleled  collection  of  artistic  smith- 
work  from  various  epochs,  and  study  of  this  col- 
lection bears  fruit  in  the  practice  classes,  where 
many  a  lock,  hinge,  or  clasp  shows  the  inspiration 
of  older  models  fashioned  with  a  feeling  for  their 
architectural  context  which  is  lacking  in  much 
modern  wrought  iron. 

Every  school  in  Munich  tells  the  same  story  of 
correlation  which  makes  the  excellence  of  French 
trade  education.  But  here  the  additional  correla- 
tion with  actual  business  practice  is  established. 
Apprentices  and  journeymen  are  studying  under 
teachers  formerly  or  even  now  foremen  or  super- 
intendents in  industry.  Moreover,  they  are  not, 
as  in  Berlin,  left  to  the  mercy  of  industrial  spec- 
ialization for  their  practice  and  are  not  studying 
in  the  abstract  a  trade  with  which  their  real  ex- 
perience must  be  fragmentary.  Every  step  in 
theoretical  instruction  is  illustrated  by  the  labor- 
atory method.  The  Munich  teacher  knows  that 
142 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

an  apprentice  seldom  performs  the  operations 
even  of  that  branch  of  his  trade  at  which  his 
master  is  employed.  The  apprentice  in  the  shop 
looks  on,  hands  his  fellow  workman  tools,  helps  a 
little  here  and  there.  But  the  pupil  in  the  school 
has  a  chance  to  do  at  some  time  in  his  course 
almost  everything  common  in  trade  practice. 

The  range  of  subject-matter  taught  in  Munich 
trade  schools  seems  restricted  in  comparison  with 
the  Paris  program.  But  it  matters  little  what  one 
has  studied  if  one  has  acquired  that  asset  more 
precious  than  encyclopedias  of  information  —  the 
ability  to  think.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that 
in  doing  one  thing  completely,  the  pupil  develops 
a  more  thoughtful  habit  of  mind  ;  and  that,  hav- 
ing learned  by  thoroughness  in  a  smaller  field 
how  to  think  a  thing  out  to  the  ultimate  detail, 
he  will  be  a  more  apt  and  creative  workman  and 
a  more  intelligent  citizen.  At  least  he  will  be  in- 
dustrially resourceful,  conversant  with  his  whole 
trade,  a  useful,  usable  master  of  the  iron  hand. 

IV.   Switzerland 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  foreign  experi- 
ments at  trade  education,  a  word  must  be  said 
about   the   mountain   republic   which   has   out- 
stripped the  rest  of  the  world  in  the  matter  of 
143 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

compulsory  education.  How  often  does  it  occur 
to  the  casual  tourist  that  his  clever  Swiss  land- 
lord and  his  apt  Swiss  servants  owe  much  of  their 
efficiency  to  training  in  a  school  for  hotel  keepers  ? 
As  he  travels  through  the  bowels  of  the  earth  or 
creeps  around  mountain  shoulders  behind  the 
sturdy  crouching  engines  of  the  Swiss  railroad, 
does  he  reflect  that  in  spite  of  Switzerland's 
meagre  natural  endowment,  the  tremendous  ef- 
forts it  has  put  forth  to  develop  capable  citizens 
have  resulted  in  unparalleled  engineering 'achieve- 
ments :  in  funiculars  ;  in  model  sanitoria  and  ho- 
tels ;  in  light  and  power  industries,  —  indeed,  in 
everything  that  can  utilize  the  water  power  which 
is  nature's  chief  gift ;  in  a  perfection  of  watch- 
making absolutely  unrivaled  ;  and  in  a  profusion 
of  efficient  small  producers  who  can  maintain 
themselves  independently  against  stupendous 
odds  ?  For  a  nation  to  live  and  prosper  on  Swiss 
soil  seems  flying  in  the  face  of  Providence,  and 
Switzerland  has  done  it  because  she  is,  above  all 
others,  the  land  of  public  education  for  public 
usefulness. 

Swiss  curricula  present  little  that  is  new  after 
a  survey  of  French  and  German  systems  of  vo- 
cational education.  It  is  the  fitting  together  link 
by  link  of  a  complete  chain  of  industrial  training, 
144 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

the  strengthening  of  this  chain  by  closely  related 
labor  and  education  laws,  and  the  moral  and  finan- 
cial support  of  it  by  labor,  capital,  and  the  general 
public  —  it  is  this  total  program  which  renders 
Switzerland  worthy  of  special  study. 

A  unique  enactment  passed  in  1906  controls 
completely  the  conditions  of  apprenticeship  in 
Switzerland,  and  since  apprenticeship  is  so 
broadly  interpreted  as  to  cover  any  attempt  by  a 
minor  at  a  gainful  occupation,  this  law  may  be  said 
to  regulate  child  labor.  No  child  under  fifteen  may 
enter  any  workshop  or  factory,  and  seldom  may 
a  minor  work  for  more  than  ten  hours  per  day. 
The  proper  care  and  instruction  of  apprentices 
by  their  employers  is  secured  by  elaborate  regu- 
lations and  a  system  of  penalization  under  which 
an  employer  may  forfeit  his  right  to  receive  ap- 
prentices. In  addition  to  this  trade  instruction 
given  in  the  master's  shop,  the  learner  must  be 
allowed  certain  time  during  his  working  day  to 
attend  the  industrial,  continuation,  or  general 
school  in  his  district.  Moreover,  at  the  end  of 
his  apprenticeship,  he  is  required  by  law  and  by 
trade  union  regulation  to  undergo  a  test  of 
working  ability;  and  many  pupils  who  have 
passed  the  legal  school  age  remain  in  various 
courses  to  prepare  for  this  examination. 
145 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

In  some  Swiss  cantons,  school  attendance  is 
practically  compulsory  between  the  ages  of  six 
and  nineteen,  as  pupils  remain  from  six  to  four- 
teen in  the  primary  grades,  from  fourteen  to 
seventeen  in  the  complementary  or  vocational 
school,  and  then  follow  courses  preparatory  for 
the  obligatory  examination  for  recruits.  In  the 
canton  of  Geneva,  the  child  goes  at  three  to  the 
Ecole  Enfantine,  and  at  seven  passes  into  the 
Ecole  Primaire,  where  instruction  in  modern 
languages  and  manual  training  is  begun.  At  thir- 
teen, he  enters  upon  a  two  years'  course  in  one 
of  the  following  institutions  :  (i)  Secondary  rural 
schools;  (2)  the  Ecole  Complement  aire t  a  part- 
time  school,  which  "  completes  and  develops  pri- 
mary education  from  the  point  of  view  of  trade 
practice  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  special  lo- 
cality "  ;  or  (3)  the  Ecole  Professionnelle,  which 
is  not  a  course  for  apprentices,  but  is  comparable 
to  our  own  manual  training  high  schools.  It  pre- 
pares for  any  higher  special  school  and  aims  to 
develop  general  capacity  and  intelligence.  After 
fifteen,  school  attendance  is  no  longer  compulsory, 
but  "  employers  favor  workers  who  follow  higher 
courses,"1  and  often  subsidize  those  which  their 
employees  attend. 

1  Astier  et  Cuminal,  Z'  Enscignement  Technique. 
I46 


FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

Among  higher  courses,  designed  to  train  aver- 
age workmen,  may  be  mentioned  various  night 
schools  and  several  special  schools  giving  trade 
preparation  equivalent  to  apprenticeship,  such  as 
the  Ecole  des  Metiers  (for  building-trades),  the 
Ecole  Me'canique  and  the  Ecole  cT  Horologie. 
These  schools  emphasize  practical  instruction  and 
give  only  such  academic  branches  as  bear  directly 
upon  the  trades  in  hand.  Even  trade  theory  is  not 
extensively  developed  in  the  curricula.  The  Tech- 
nicum  may  also  be  entered  from  the  Ecole  Pro- 
fessionnelle,  but  is  a  more  advanced  school  intended 
for  the  training  of  foremen  in  construction,  civil, 
mechanical,  and  electrical  engineering.  While 
practice  plays  a  large  part  in  the  instruction,  it  is 
not  stressed  so  much  as  general  trade  theory,  the 
Technicum  being  in  this  respect  a  contrast  to  the 
trade  schools  just  described.  From  the  secondary 
rural  schools,  country  children  may  enter  similarly 
graded  courses  in  agricultural  branches.  Polytech- 
nical  and  horticultural  universities  complete  a 
system  recalling  the  German  plan,  but  even  more 
comprehensive  and  far-reaching. 

The  Swiss  ideal  is  represented  by  the  sequence 

of  primary,  professional,  and  technical  schools 

embracing  the   more   liberal   features   of   both 

French  and  German  systems.  But  the  existence 

147 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

of  the  Ecole  Compl^mentaire  (the  part-time  school 
in  which  early  trade  specialization  appears)  shows 
that  in  Switzerland,  as  in  Germany,  France,  and 
America,  economic  pressure  is  too  great  to  allow 
the  mass  of  children  to  continue  a  general  edu- 
cation beyond  the  grammar  grades.  The  Lehr- 
IS  werkstdtten1  in  Berne  offer  an  interesting  solution 
of  this  difficulty.  In  this  school  pupils  are  regu- 
larly apprenticed  and  at  the  expiration  of  the  term 
are  paid  a  wage  for  the  time  they  have  spent  in 
the  shops.  The  articles  they  produce  are  turned 
over  to  the  trade  union  council  for  sale  and  thus 
friction  with  labor  organizations  because  of  school 
competition  is  avoided.  Here,  as  throughout  the 
entire  field  of  Swiss  vocational  training,  we  see  a 
harmonious  cooperation  of  labor,  capital,  legisla- 
tive bodies,  and  educational  authorities  for  the 
upbuilding  of  efficient  citizenship  and  national 
prosperity. 

1  Public  training-shops. 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

"  Double,  double, 
Toil  and  trouble ! 
Fire  burn 
And  cauldron  bubble." 

In  that  cauldron  where  the  American  trade  school 
is  brewing,  bubbles  a  quantity  of  heterogeneous  ex- 
periment—  most  of  which  has  already  been  tried 
and  found  wanting  abroad.  "Experience  keeps 
a  dear  school,"  but  America  will  learn  in  no  other. 
In  our  eagerness  to  meet  the  educational  need  of 
our  time,  we  have  not  planned  deliberately  or 
studied  our  industrial  situation  in  detail.  Snatch- 
ing at  a  multitude  of  foreign  programs  without 
examininginto  their  previous  success,  we  try  them 
at  home ;  and  have  not,  so  far,  kept  close  enough 
account  of  their  results  to  judge  whether  they 
have  proved  satisfactory  here. 

These  experiments  group  themselves  as  pre- 
paratory trade  schools,1  i.  e.,  schools  which  give 

1  This  classification  is  borrowed  from  a  leaflet  published  by 
the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education. 
149 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

a  broad,  general  foundation  in  manual  and  aca- 
demic branches  and  fit  the  pupil  to  enter  industry 
as  a  learner ;  trade  schools  for  the  average  work- 
man, whose  aim  is  to  supplant  apprenticeship; 
technical  high  schools  designed  to  prepare  for  the 
upper  ranks  In  industry ;  and  part-time  and  even- 
ing  classes  for  persons  already  engaged  in  indus- 
try or  commerce. 

It  is  evident  that  most  of  them  are  reduplica- 
tions of  French  and  German  types  already  dis- 
cussed. The  outline  on  page  151  will  show  their 
foreign  parentage  at  a  glance. 

What  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  chapter 
of  the  French  and  German  schools  may  be  here 
reiterated  in  more  emphatic  American  terms ; 
more  emphatic  because  our  industrial  situation  is 
more  complex  and  fluid  than  that  in  any  other 
country,  and  a  rigid  school  method  will  therefore 
fall  more  quickly  behind  the  times.  Such  scien- 
tific investigation  of  American  methods  as  has 
been  made  points  to  the  same  conclusions  as  those 
already  reached  by  European  experts. 

The  preparatory  school,  which  gives  a  broad 
basis  in  manual  training  and  academic  branches, 
does  not  specialize  along  definite  trade  lines,  but 
trains  its  students  in  general  use  of  machinery 
and  material  so  that  when  they  enter  any  indus- 
150 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 


Munich  Con- 
tinuation 
School 

Certain 
Private 
Corporation 
Schools  for 
employees 

£   ° 

Technical 
High  School 
to  prepare  for 
upper  ranks  of 
industry. 
Note,  however, 
important  dif- 
ference: 
The  German 
student  h^s  al- 
ready complet- 
ed an  appren- 
ticeship be- 
fore entering 
the  School 

Berlin 
Continua- 
tion 
School 

Part  Time 
and  Evening 
Schools 
giving  the 
theory  with- 
out practice 

<u 

n 
K 

H 

c  o 

PutO 

Trade  School 
for  average 
workman,  de- 
signed to 
supplant 
apprentice- 
ship 

Swiss 

"  Professional " 

School 

General 
Preparatory 
Trade 
School 

o  >-. 

9 

THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

try  they  are  defter  with  their  hands  and  more  apt 
in  learning  new  processes  than  the  raw  recruit 
without  previous  training.  This  school  may,  from 
one  point  of  view,  be  classed  with  manual  train- 
ing high  schools,  in  that  a  diploma  does  not  cer- 
tify bread-winning  ability  and  that  an  apprentice- 
ship is  still  necessary  after  graduation.  From  the 
developmental  point  of  view,  the  aims  of  the  types 
are  the  same.  But  the  preparatory  trade  school 
differs  from  the  so-called  manual  training  school 
in  having  a  distinctly  industrial  bias.  By  empha- 
sizing the  value  of  general  education  as  a  prepa- 
ration for  industry,  it  catches  many  pupils  who 
would  otherwise  leave  school  early  to  work  in 
poorly  paid  and  uneducative  juvenile  occupations. 
Such  an  institution  is  the  Lawrence  Industrial 
School  at  Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  "devoted  to 
opening  up  avenues  to  the  industries  and  trades." 
As  Lawrence  is  a  textile  center,  the  school  work 
naturally  enough  borrows  its  subject-matter  from 
textile  industries.  The  three  years'  course  com- 
prises business  English,  mill  mathematics,  book- 
keeping, industrial  history,  chemistry,  mechanics 
and  electricity,  raw  material,  carding  and  spinning^ 
weaving  and  warp  preparation,  fabric  analysis,  de- 
signing, dyeing  and  finishing.  Special  dexterity  in 
any  one  of  the  many  processes  involved  in  factory 
152 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

work  along  these  lines  is  not  the  aim.  The  course 
serves  merely  as  a  general  introduction  to  the  in- 
dustry and  the  industrial  viewpoint.  Pupils  enter 
at  fourteen ;  graduate  at  seventeen. 

Such  a  course  raises  the  question  whether  the 
graduate  loses  or  gains  industrially  by  spending 
in  the  schoolroom  three  years  which  might  be 
devoted  to  acquiring  that  special  manual  skill  by 
which  he  must  ultimately  earn  his  living.  The 
advocate  of  this  plan  would  be  quick  in  his  re- 
sponse that,  at  fourteen,  no  child  has  access  to 
opportunities  for  acquiring  skill,  and  that,  if  he 
goes  to  work,  it  will  be  in  some  position  which 
leaves  him  farther  behind  than  the  preparatory 
school.  But  as  Mr.  Merritt,  of  the  Yale-Towne 
Manufacturing  Company,  justly  declares,  "  In 
considering  the  question  of  industrial  education, 
one  of  the  most  important  factors  is  the  desire 
of  children  to  earn  something  so  that  they  will 
be  independent,  and  also  the  desire  of  their  par- 
ents to  have  them  earn  something  to  help  to- 
ward the  family  support.  ...  In  many  cases 
where  such  trade  schools  have  been  started,  it 
has  been  found  difficult  to  get  sufficient  pupils 
to  fill  the  schools  because  they  prefer  to  get  into 
some  gainful  occupation."  An  inquiry  as  to  rea- 
sons for  leaving  school,  made  by  the  author 
153 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

among  trade  union  locals  in  Kansas  City,  sub- 
stantiates this  observation.  A  frequent  answer, 
tinged  with  regret,  was,  "  Most  of  us  stayed  in 
school  as  long  as  we  could  afford  it." 

Until  recently,  trade  schools  which  design  to 
supplant  apprenticeship  have  been  almost  the  sole 
exponents  of  the  industrial  ideal  in  this  country. 
The  industrial  field,  for  which  one  department  of 
a  well-known  school  of  this  kind  prepares,  has  been 
exhaustively  investigated  by  the  Russell  Sage 
Foundation  Committee  on  Women's  Work,  and 
application  of  their  findings  to  this  type  of  insti- 
tution seems  warranted.  The  committee  selected 
for  special  study  that  part  of  millinery  known  as 
"  trimming,"  but  as  trade  terms  are  very  loosely 
employed  in  the  business,  their  work  had  a  much 
wider  range.  Two  hundred  women  workers  in  the 
industry  in  New  York  City  were  interviewed  at 
their  homes  by  the  committee's  agents,  who  ques- 
tioned them  as  to  the  number  of  positions  they 
had  held,  the  salaries  received,  the  periods  of  em- 
ployment, and  the  opportunities  given  for  learn- 
ing the  trade,  and  as  to  whether  they  had  ever  at- 
tended a  trade  school.  If  so,  the  workers  were 
asked  how  the  school  training  had  helped  them 
in  their  work.  The  shop  was  then  visited  and 
the  employer's  opinion  of  the  trade  school  grad- 
154 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

uate  and  the  need  for  industrial  training  obtained. 
The  school  attended  was  finally  inspected  and 
the  classroom  work  examined  in  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  trade  needs  previously  gained. 
The  results  of  this  unique  and  systematic  study 
recall  the  statements  of  the  Parisian  League 
for  the  Encouragement  of  Apprenticeship  and 
are  even  more  startlingly  conclusive.  The  com- 
mittee's conclusions  may  be  summarized  briefly 
as  follows:  (i)  Academic  training  given  in  con- 
nection with  trade  work  is  insufficient.  (2)  The 
courses  are  not  long  enough  to  give  thoroughness 
and  skill.  "  The  experience  of  millinery  workers 
would  seem  to  suggest  that  in  modern  times, 
perhaps  even  more  than  in  the  days  when  indus- 
trial conditions  were  less  complex,  apprenticeship 
must  include  learning  the  trade,  as  well  as  one 
process  in  it,  if  the  workers  are  to  be  efficient. 
.  .  .  Ability  to  adapt  is  of  primary  importance. 
.  .  .  Yet  pyschology  and  practical  experience 
make  it  clear  that  such  ability  cannot  be  given  in 
a  six  months'  course."  (3)  There  is  not  enough 
practice  on  single  processes,  and  not  enough  va- 
riety in  work.  (4)  Few  of  the  courses  use  exclu- 
sively real  trade  material.  (5)  Many  of  the  teach- 
ers are  not  experienced  practical  milliners.  (6) 
The  pupils  do  not,  therefore,  learn  the  trade  as 
155 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

it  actually  is  ;  they  are  not  ready  to  take  hold  and 
do  something  at  once  when  they  enter  a  shop. 
(7)  The  school  takes  girls  too  young,  and  there- 
fore graduates  them  too  young  to  place  them- 
selves advantageously  in  the  trade.  (8)  The 
school  augments  the  oversupply  of  workers, 
which  is  a  principal  reason  for  the  pitifully  low 
wages  and  the  slack  seasons  prevalent  in  the 
industry. 

It  appears  here,  as  in  Paris,  that  the  school 
divorces  itself  from  actual  trade  practice  in  spite 
of  an  earnest  effort  to  meet  the  industrial  needs 
of  the  day.  "  Our  trade  schools  are  no  good.  It's 
altogether  different  outside,"  said  one  millinery 
girl.  How  to  make  such  courses  automatically 
self-testing,  and  thus  prevent  lapses  from  current 
methods,  is  a  difficult  problem.  The  particular 
trade  school  under  discussion  has  kept  no  system- 
atic track  of  its  graduates  and  hence  cannot 
judge  of  the  results  of  its  work ;  and  the  temp- 
tation is  great  for  the  busy  teacher  to  lose  touch 
with  the  almost  vertiginous  progress  of  an  indus- 
try which,  at  the  beginning  of  her  pedagogic 
career,  she  probably  knew  from  A  to  Z.  The 
industrial  torrent  rushes  rapidly  on,  but  the 
pupil  is  caught  for  the  length  of  the  training 
course  in  an  eddy  beside  the  stream.  The  more 
iS6 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

complicated  the  trade,  and  the  longer  the  course, 
the  more  urgent  becomes  this  objection. 

The  same  indecision  between  training  for  the 
home  and  training  for  the  trade  which  charac- 
terizes the  Berlin  continuation  school  for  girls  is 
felt  in  our  trade  schools  for  girls  as  well.  The 
short  course  barely  gives  time  for  one  line,  and 
a  combination  of  two  ideals  precludes  thorough- 
ness in  either.  Admitting  to  trade  schools  girls 
who  do  not  intend  to  earn  their  living  by  what 
they  learn,  also  lowers  the  standard  of  school 
work.  There  is  not  that  atmosphere  of  earnest 
steadiness  and  painstaking  care  which  must  char- 
acterize the  successful  worker  in  industry. 

Technical  high  schools,  of  secondary  grade, 
indeed,  but  still  attempting  to  raise  the  manual 
worker  in  the  ranks  of  industry  and  fit  him  for 
responsible  positions,  are  open  to  the  same  criti- 
cisms. The  Technical  High  School  in  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  belongs  to  this  group.  The  ideal  of  the 
school  is  at  once  apparent  in  its  course  of  study: 
the  shopwork  for  the  first  year  being  turning  and 
cabinet-making ;  for  the  second,  pattern-making, 
founding  and  forging;  for  the  third,  machine 
shop  practice ;  and  being,  for  the  last  of  the  third 
and  all  of  the  fourth,  concentrated  on  some  spe- 
cial branch.  Depth  and  thoroughness  are  not  so 
157 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

much  the  aim  as  breadth  and  general  capacity. 
To  prepare  the  way  for  business  adaptability,  and 
executive  advancement  is  the  object. 

Evening  schools  for  persons  already  in  indus- 
try are  the  most  common  and  the  oldest  method 
for  helping  working  people  educationally.  Cul- 
tural branches  have,  as  a  rule,  formed  the  back- 
bone of  such  courses.  Of  late,  actual  trade  in- 
struction has  encroached  upon  the  academic 
preserves  of  the  night  school,  and  we  find  two 
distinctly  industrial  types  of  courses :  one  offer- 
ing general  technical  instruction,  and  the  other 
giving  special  practice  work  intended  to  supple- 
ment the  highly  specialized  shop  training  of  the 
modern  worker.  Excellent  examples  of  all  three 
of  these  classes  abound.  The  evening  school  has 
stormed  the  most  conservative  educational  cita- 
dels. Those  who  oppose  trade  education  in  gen- 
eral as  class  education,  and  an  undemocratic 
converging  of  the  lines  of  opportunity  upon  one 
focus,  welcome  enthusiastically  any  effort  to  lift 
the  laborer  from  the  industrial  pit  into  which  he 
falls  without  it.  The  utility  of  the  night  school 
as  a  solution  for  the  industrial  training  problem 
is,  however,  to  be  gravely  questioned.  For  the 
young  worker  it  is  most  unfortunate.  The  strain 
of  a  long  day's  labor  in  a  factory  or  shop  is 

i58 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

enough,  if  not  too  much,  for  the  growing  child. 
And  even  if  there  were  no  danger  from  over- 
strain, a  child's  mind  is  not  in  trim  to  profit  by 
evening  teaching  after  a  day  of  toil.  Neither  do 
the  short  evening  hours  give  opportunity  for 
thorough  and  comprehensive  instruction.  It  is 
also  doubtful  wisdom  to  give  young  and  irre- 
sponsible boys  and  girls  an  excuse  for  staying 
out  night  after  night  alone.  If  the  evening 
school  has  a  legitimate  function,  it  is  certainly 
for  adults.  Yet  even  here  the  question  obtrudes 
itself,  "  Is  not  the  evening  school  a  makeshift 
way  of  compensating  for  previous  deficiencies  in 
training  ? "  When  the  public  does  for  its  young 
people  all  it  should  in  the  way  of  preliminary 
education,  the  night  school  will  die.  It  is,  figura- 
tively speaking,  the  educational  vanguard,  a  com- 
promise which  the  public  makes  with  the  mi- 
nority who  have  begun  to  demand,  but  have  not 
yet  attained,  their  full  rights.  However  far  for- 
ward we  may  push  the  night  school,  it  must  still 
be  regarded  as  a  temporizing  measure,  useful 
only  in  helping  adults  to  combat  unfair  condi- 
tions of  early  training  or  present  employment. 

There  remains  to  be  considered  the  part-time 
school  for  those  engaged  in  commerce  or  indus- 
try. This  has,  in  America,  assumed  two  forms : 
159 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

the  private  apprenticeship  school  conducted  by 
certain  large  corporations,  and  a  few  scattered 
experiments  like  Lewis  Institute  in  Chicago 
and  the  Fitchburg,  Massachusetts,  High  School, 
The  latter  reproduces  in  its  essential  features 
the  Berlin  system  of  continuation  schools.  The 
chief  difference  is  the  time  divisions  between 
school  and  work  ;  in  place  of  the  six  hours  spent 
in  school  by  the  Berlin  child,  the  Fitchburg  plan 
provides  alternate  weeks  of  school  and  shop- 
work.  The  school  instruction  is  purely  academic  J 
and  theoretical ;  practical  skill  must  be  gained 
in  the  factories  of  the  business  concerns  coop- 
erating with  the  school  board.  This  plan  not 
only  presents  all  the  drawbacks  of  the  Berlin 
program  in  leaving  the  child's  practice  work  to 
the  hit-or-miss  tactics  of  industrial  specializa- 
tion, but  raises  a  serious  problem  by  the  duplica- 
tion of  the  apprentice  force  involved.  In  a  small 
scale  experiment,  this  danger  might  not  become 
apparent,  but  if  universally  applied,  would  it  not 
lead  directly  to  the  equipping  of  twice  the  num- 
ber of  workmen  needed  in  industry  ?  Lewis  In- 
stitute offers  certain  improvements  upon  the 
Fitchburg  plan  in  the  way  of  shop  practice,  ten 
hours  of  the  school  week  being  devoted  to  found- 
ing, pattern-making,  machine  construction  and 
160 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

forging,  but  the  duplication  of  the  apprentice 
force  remains. 

The  Munich  program,  which  has  proved  most 
efficient  among  foreign  schools,  is  carried  out  in 
the  United  States  only  in  a  modified  form  and 
by  certain  wealthy  corporations.  The  apprentice- 
ship schools  of  the  General  Electric  Company, 
the  Westinghouse  Company,  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral Railroad,  and  a  dozen  other  well-known  and 
prosperous  concerns  attest  the  success  and  econ- 
omy of  this  method  of  training  workmen.  In 
drafting  a  final  program  for  public  trade  edu- 
cation, study  of  these  institutions  must  play  a 
prominent  part.  The  instruction  there  given  may 
be  narrow  from  an  academic  and  cultural  point 
of  view,  but  it  comprises  the  necessary  industrial 
elements.  It  teaches  what  business  needs ;  the 
public  schools  would  add  what  society  and  hu- 
manity need.  The  General  Electric  Company's 
school  devotes  seven  and  one  half  hours  per 
week  to  theory  and  fifty-five  hours  to  shop  prac- 
tice in  training-rooms  equipped  for  this  special 
purpose.  This  plan  secures  both  the  advantages 
of  the  French  school,  where  the  work  is  done 
under  the  eye  of  an  instructor,  and  identification 
with  actual  conditions  of  manufacture — an  ideal 
opportunity  which  none  but  the  most  powerful 
161 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

of  corporations  can  supply,  and  which  is  most 
nearly  approximated  in  the  educational  world  by 
the  part-time  continuation  school,  including  gen- 
eral practice  in  the  curriculum. 

The  Yale-Towne  Manufacturing  Company  has, 
for  several  years  past,  had  in  operation  such  an 
apprenticeship  system  which  is  in  effect  a  practi- 
cal trade  school,  producing  men  for  its  own  work, 
but  also  men  who  could  readily  adapt  themselves 
to  any  mechanical  operations.  Apprentices  are 
paid  increasing  wages  during  a  four  years' course, 
at  the  end  of  which  a  certificate  of  graduation  is 
awarded,  together  with  a  cash  bonus  if  service 
has  been  satisfactory.  All  graduates  are  encour- 
aged to  remain  in  the  employ  of  the  company  and 
are  given  substantial  increase  in  wages  when  they 
enter  upon  their  career  as  journeymen.  The  in- 
struction of  these  apprentices  is  carried  on  in 
special  training-rooms  under  expert  teachers  in 
the  different  grades  of  work  manufactured  and 
in  the  handling  and  repairing  of  machine  tools. 
Opportunity  is  given  to  show  inventive  ability. 
Each  apprentice  is  taught  individually  and  is 
advanced  in  accordance  with  his  ability.  After 
about  two  years  in  the  training-rooms,  the  ap- 
prentices are  usually  placed  in  different  depart- 
ments of  the  factory,  where  they  work  with 
162 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

journeymen  and  come  more  closely  in  touch  with 
the  regular  factory  routine. 

To  acquaint  them  with  the  science  which  lies 
behind  the  design  of  the  machines  and  tools,  and 
with  the  problems  they  must  meet  later  on  as 
foremen,  the  apprentices  are  required  to  attend 
educational  classes  provided  by  the  company. 
For  these  sessions,  which  fall  during  working- 
hours,  they  are  paid  the  same  as  when  at  the 
bench.  The  course  of  study  comprises  arithme- 
tic, elementary  algebra,  mensuration,  elementary 
trigonometry,  elements  of  mechanics,  power 
transmission,  strength  of  material,  mechanism, 
mechanical  drawing,  machine  design,  and  jig  and 
fixture  design.  In  addition,  the  superintendents 
and  foremen  give  practical  talks  relating  to  the 
trades.  These  classes  usually  occupy  six  hours 
per  week,  twelve  weeks  constituting  a  term,  and 
three  terms,  a  year.  Advancement  is  contingent 
upon  passing  an  examination  at  the  end  of  each 
term. 

The  results  of  this  school  have  thus  far  been 
beneficial  to  both  the  apprentices  and  the  com- 
pany. In  quite  a  number  of  cases  at  the  end  of 
the  second  year,  when  the  apprentices  have  be- 
come skillful  enough  to  run  an  ordinary  machine, 
such  as  a  lathe  or  a  milling-machine,  they  have 

163 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

been  drawn  off  from  their  course  by  the  offer  of 
high  wages  from  some  outside  shop.  During  the 
recent  rush  to  make  automobiles,  for  example, 
the  automobile  shops  offered  unreasonably  high 
wages  for  only  fairly  skilled  hands  ;  and  yet  these 
opportunities  to  work  before  completing  the 
course  show  that  the  apprentices  were  receiving 
in  the  Yale-Towne  shops  a  training  measurable 
in  dollars  and  cents,  and  sufficiently  flexible  to 
admit  of  ready  industrial  re-adjustment. 

In  classification  of  the  multiform  departures 
along  this  newest  educational  byroad,  many  nu- 
merous and  valuable  experiments  have  necessarily 
eluded  pigeon-holing ;  and  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  the  several  classes  suggested  has 
been  difficult  to  determine.  No  two  courses  are 
alike;  no  two  have  even  the  same  ideal.  Each 
has  been  shaped  by  the  personal  bias  and  the 
general  observation  of  some  individual  or  groups 
of  individuals  rather  than  by  a  systematic  study 
of  the  industrial  conditions  they  were  designed 
to  meet.  American  treatment  of  the  subject  has 
been  deductive  rather  than  inductive  —  a  result 
probably  of  the  fact  that  the  movement  has  been 
under  the  wing  of  the  educational  authorities 
with  strong  preconceived  ideas  and  academic  in- 
terests. Within  the  past   few  years  a  different 

i64 


AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

school  of  enthusiasts  has  arisen  who  cry  out  against 
present  educational  methods  as  sterile  and  futile, 
who  would  eliminate  from  the  course  of  study  all 
unnecessary  and  unpractical  fields  of  culture,  and 
train  our  children  with  a  single  eye  to  working 
and  earning  capacity.  Neither  camp  has  as  yet 
possessed  the  whole  truth  about  trade  education. 
The  man  who  would  over-academize  trade  educa- 
tion robs  it  of  its  function  and  virility.  The  over- 
practical  enthusiast  who  measures  teaching  by 
dollars  and  cents,  and  discards  everything  that  has 
no  immediate  industrial  utility,  robs  the  child  of 
his  educational  birthright.  Man  is  made  for  more 
than  wage-earning,  but  man  has  a  right  to  wage- 
earning  ability,  for  "  his  further  development 
along  cultural  and  other  lines  is  conditioned  by 
his  capacity  to  support  himself." 

No  discussion  of  trade  education  in  America 
would  be  complete  if  it  disregarded  those  indus- 
trial schools  for  the  negro,  which  led  in  a  move- 
ment that  has  now  extended  to  black,  red,  and 
white  alike.  Even  during  the  pioneer  stages  of 
negro  education,  the  faculties  of  Hampton  and 
Tuskegee  Institutes  held  that  broader  conception 
of  industrial  training  which  saves  the  trade  school 
from  pure  utilitarianism.  With  them  it  was  never 
the  trade  for  trade's  sake,  but  always  the  trade 
165 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

for  the  man's  sake.  These  two  great  schools  were 
not  organized  to  train  labor,  but  to  uplift  and 
rehabilitate  a  race.  Forty  years  ago  Hampton 
Institute  was  a  living  embodiment  of  the  convic- 
tion that  education  is  the  most  fundamental 
method  of  social  betterment ;  and  forty  years 
ago,  by  erecting  education  on  a  firm  vocational 
basis,  Hampton  Institute  struck  the  keynote  of 
true  constructive  philanthropy.  Shortsighted 
people  have  both  praised  and  censured  industri- 
al training  for  the  negro  on  the  ground  that  it 
will  confine  him  to  his  proper  or  improper  sphere. 
Results  have  set  at  naught  both  these  narrow 
inferences.  Industrial  education  has  paved  the 
way  for  negro  advancement  by  giving  to  every 
black  the  one  right  of  every  man  of  any  color  — 
the  right  to  be  of  some  use  in  the  world. 


XI 


THE  TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

A  clear-cut  ideal  is  the  first  step  toward  draft- 
ing a  workable  program.  What,  then,  shall  be  the 
aim  of  American  industrial  education  ?  What  fin- 
ished or  unfinished  product  shall  our  trade  school 
strive  to  graduate  ?  Certainly  neither  theorist  nor 
specialist.  Highly  skilled  specialists  are,  how- 
ever, what  industry  undoubtedly  needs  and  lacks. 
But  why  does  it  lack  them  ?  Not  because  industry 
could  not  train  specialists ;  but  because  the  proper 
material  out  of  which  to  make  specialists  is  un- 
available. Our  trouble  with  present  workmen  is 
basic  lack  of  trade  intelligence  and  mental  train- 
ing, which  prevents  progress  from  lower  to  higher 
forms  of  work.  It  is  the  basis  for  skilled  speciali- 
zation, for  mobility,  for  executive  capacity  which 
the  trade  school  must  furnish.  General  intelli- 
gence, general  trade  theory,  general  trade  prac- 
tice :  these  are  the  essentials.  We  may  add  to  the 
old-time  educational  ideal  one  word,  and  read  as 
our  objective  purpose, "  the  all-around  workman." 
167 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

The  history  of  the  trade  school  in  our  country 
has  been  so  far  this  :  consciousness  of  the  inad- 
equacy of  academic  education  ;  expensive  but  too 
often  superficial  investigation  of  foreign  schools 
or  schools  in  other  American  cities,  with  an  eye 
to  courses  of  study  and  ideals  rather  than  results  ; 
vague  canvass  of  the  business  public  to  measure 
the  desire  for  better  trained  workmen ;  drafting  in 
the  educational  sanctum  sanctorum ,  a  program 
which  first  meets  the  light  of  day  and  the  eye  of 
practical  criticism  in  the  shape  of  a  school  built 
and  in  operation ;  hiring  instructors  who  have  once 
been  engaged  in  industry,  but  who  must  now 
teach  year  after  year,  often  summer  and  winter, 
and  who  thus  lose  touch  with  progress  in  their 
trades  ;  admitting  any  and  every  pupil,  whether 
actually  destined  for  a  self-supporting  career  or 
not ;  finding  places  for  a  few  graduates,  but  in 
almost  no  instance  keeping  systematic  track  of 
each  pupil  with  a  view  to  testing  and  reconstruct- 
ing classroom  work  in  the  light  of  its  failure  or 
success  as  a  preparation  for  industry. 

Needless  to  say,  this  procedure  began  at  the 
wrong  end,  soon  left  solid  ground,  and  has  been 
navigating  the  upper  airs  of  educational  theory 
ever  since.  Much  really  excellent  work  has  been 
accomplished  by  American  industrial  schools. 
168 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

But  the  whole  subject  is,  as  yet,  nebulous ;  we 
do  not  know  how  successful  we  have  been  or  just 
where  we  have  failed.  Instead  of  duplicating 
untested  curricula,  instead  of  blindly  following 
the  blind  and  investing  in  expensive  educational 
plants  which  experience  may  prove  to  be  unpro- 
fitable, let  us  preface  the  grounding  of  vocational 
schools  by  a  careful  survey  of  our  industrial  needs 
and  a  rigorous  testing  of  the  work  of  already 
established  institutions. 

Fundamental  questions  to  be  answered  at  the 
start  are  :  what  industries  the  school  must  feed  ; 
at  what  age  these  industries  take  on  helpers ; 
what  sort  of  work  beginners  do ;  what  training 
they  are  given  in  the  shop  ;  and  how  many  new 
helpers  per  year  these  industries  require.  We 
must  know  what  per  cent  of  workers  are  women  ; 
must  determine  woman's  stability  as  an  industrial 
factor,  and  see  whether  it  be  true  that  the  aver- 
age woman  worker  merely  passes  through  indus- 
try on  her  way  to  marriage.  We  must  know  the 
working  conditions  and  wage  scales  for  these  in- 
dustries, and  the  qualities  upon  which  promotion 
depends.  We  must  put  ourselves  thoroughly  in 
touch  with  the  workers  themselves  as  well  as 
with  the  employers,  and  a  labor  union  may  have 
as  much  to  teach  us  as  the  manufacturer.  The 
169 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

trade  school  should  look  impartially  to  the  good 
of  the  greatest  number ;  it  must  not  ally  itself 
with  any  special  interest ;  must  remember  that 
what  industry  can  get  out  of  its  workers  is  no 
more  important  than  what  workers  can  get 
out  of  industry.  What  the  trade  needs  can  be 
learned  from  the  trade  alone ;  but  for  what  the 
man  needs  that  the  trade  may  not  victimize  him, 
we  must  go  to  his  living  as  well  as  to  his  working 
conditions.  Business  men,  foremen,  journeymen, 
trade  union  members,  educators,  and  philanthro- 
pists must  join  in  drafting  the  program. 

Rigorous  testing  of  the  work  of  already  estab- 
lished schools  ought  to  have  been  done  from  the 
very  beginning  by  the  schools  themselves.  Each 
graduate  should  be  followed  for  several  years  and 
the  value  of  his  preparation  measured  in  his  own 
and  his  employer's  eyes.  Only  thus  can  the  school 
tell  whether  it  is  furnishing  industry  what  in- 
dustry needs ;  only  thus,  if  at  all,  can  a  once  flaw- 
less curriculum  be  kept  abreast  of  the  times ; 
and  only  thus  can  we  tell  what  to  save  and 
what  to  discard  in  grounding  new  vocational 
institutions. 

Since  no  such  exhaustive  study  has  yet  been 
made,  we  are  scarcely  ready  to  pronounce  upon 
what  kind  of  trade  education  will  produce  the 
170 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

all-round  workman  demanded  by  American  in- 
dustry. It  is,  however,  certain  that  only  a  very 
flexible  form  which  will  continually  readjust  itself 
to  changing  industrial  conditions  and  be  continu- 
ally and  automatically  tested  by  industry,  can  sat- 
isfy our  needs.  We  require,  furthermore,  the  sys- 
tem which  will  never  create  an  artificial  supply 
of  workers  and  which  will  be  at  once  most  econo- 
mical of  time  and  of  results.  Can  we  best  attain 
these  ends  by  preparing  for,  by  supplanting  or 
by  supplementing  apprenticeship  ?  Which  of  these 
systems  has  proved  most  effective  in  Europe  ? 
The  Munich  continuation  school,  with  its  obliga- 
tory supplementing  of  wage  work  for  apprentices 
already  placed  in  commerce  and  industry.  Which 
system  do  our  successful  business  enterprises  in 
America  embody  in  their  training  schools  for 
apprentices  ?  Theoretical  instruction  and  general 
exercises  in  practice  are  given  under  the  eye  of 
a  teacher,  but  the  learner  is  also  put  into  the  fac- 
tory to  work  side  by  side  with  journeymen  who 
are  producing  for  the  market.  No  set  instruction 
can  supplant  drill  at  the  machine  under  com- 
mercial pressure ;  nothing  can  give  such  timely 
correction  to  the  inevitable  classroom  inflexibil- 
ity. General  trade  knowledge,  general  trade  prac- 
tice may  be  acquired  in  the  school ;  speed,  dex- 
171 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

terity,  and  the  verification  of  classroom  knowl- 
edge come  in  the  trade ;  and  by  a  combination 
of  these  experiences,  time  is  greatly  economizedf 
the  pupil  is  able  to  earn  while  he  learns,  and 
emerges  from  his  training  more  intelligent,  re- 
sourceful, and  competent.  The  school  for  gener- 
alizing, the  factory  for  specializing — a  continuous 
and  clarifying  interaction  !  —  a  flexible  self-test- 
ing system  whose  courses  cannot  well  lag  behind 
the  times,  since  every  pupil  is  conversant  with 
actual  business  conditions  ! 

To  decide  that  the  school  shall  perfect  our  pre- 
sent labor  force  determines  when  definite  trade 
instruction  should  begin.  Certainly  not  before  the 
working  age.  Premature  specialization  dwarfs  the 
mind  and  ties  the  child  down  for  life  to  the  pos- 
sibilities of  a  few  simple  reflexes.  Youth  has  a 
right  to  growing  time.  There  is  necessary,  too, 
for  intelligent  work,  a  substratum  of  culture  and 
mental  drill,  to  furnish  which  a  complete  gram- 
mar course  uninvaded  by  bread-and-butter  respon- 
sibilities is  none  too  long.  We  may  begin  early  in 
the  school  life,  however,  to  lay  the  foundation  for 
trade  dexterity,  as  well  as  trade  intelligence,  by 
introducing  manual  training  into  the  grades.  What 
psychology  calls  basic  skill  (whether  mental  or 
motor)  is  acquired  very  early,  probably  before  the 
172 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

twelfth  year.  If  broad  muscular  adaptability  is 
gained  in  the  grammar  grades,  the  child  will  come 
to  the  higher  school  —  trade  or  academic  —  self- 
controlled,  effective,  and  able  to  lay  hold  of 
special  processes  without  fumbling. 

What  balance  shall  be  maintained  between  the 
academic  and  vocational,  the  theoretic  and  prac- 
tical elements  in  the  trade  school  curriculum? 
We  have  already  seen  that  theory  and  practice 
must  go  hand  in  hand  to  produce  an  all-round 
workman  and  that  the  school  cannot  safely  leave 
practice  to  the  shop.  The  other  question  is  far 
more  difficult  to  answer.  Yet  we  must  remember 
that  by  inserting  the  word  "  work  "  in  the  old  edu- 
cational rubric,  we  have  not  changed  its  import. 
The  test  of  education  has  always  been  utility ;  the 
Latin  high  school,  the  academic  college  course 
were  once  vocational.  Now  that  new  lines  of  ac- 
tivity come  into  being,  new  sorts  of  work  need 
to  be  done,  we  change,  not  the  method,  but  the 
matter.  The  oft-drawn  contrast  between  liberal 
and  practical  education  does  not  exist.  Both 
mathematics  and  chemistry  develop  thought 
power,  similar,  except  for  the  sphere  in  which  the 
thinking  is  done.  The  student  of  language  receives 
what  is  for  him  a  practical  education,  and  yet 
language  study  is  commonly  denominated  a  liberal 
173 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

or  cultural  branch.  All  good  education  is  both 
practical  and  liberal ;  and  the  training  which  was 
once  practical  for  preachers  and  lawyers  is  no  more 
liberal  than  that  which  is  to-day  practical  for  en- 
gineers, machinists,  or  men  of  business. 

If  there  is  no  inherent  difference  between  pro- 
fessional and  trade  education,  then  whatever  in 
the  one  is  calculated  to  broaden  the  vision, 
strengthen  the  mind  and  quicken  the  sensibilities, 
is  equally  proper  to  the  other.  Mathematics, 
science,  geography,  history,  language,  literature, 
music  and  art  —  these  are  subjects  of  universal 
applicability,  universal  utility.  But  because  the 
young  industrial  worker  has  no  further  apparent 
use  for  the  half- developed  material  of  his  gram- 
mar course,  he  forgets  it.  Mary  Woolman 1  points 
out  that  the  majority  of  girls  enter  the  trade 
school  with  a  very  meager  general  education  in 
which  they  are  not  interested  because  it  seems  to 
them  useless,  but  that  when  they  see  its  bearing 
on  their  daily  tasks,  they  desire  to  study  further. 
The  practical  instruction  is  thus  their  first  glimpse 
into  the  world  of  culture.  Indeed,  "  those  whose 
environment  is  work,  find  more  culture  in  a  trade 
than  in  a  purely  academic  school."  It  opens  their 
eyes  to  the  real  vitality  of  what  has  before  seemed 

1  Formerly  head  of  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls. 
174 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

dead  knowledge,  but  without  which,  mere  manual 
dexterity  is  profitless. 

Certain  narrowly  utilitarian  advocates  of  indus- 
trial training,  who  are  not  less  one-sided  in  their 
view  than  the  devotees  of  so-called  higher  edu- 
cation, would  reproduce  in  the  trade  school  that 
very  unfavorable  industrial  situation  which  it  is 
designed  to  combat.  Yet  the  vocational  idea  has 
not  come  thus  to  pare  down  the  man  to  fit  his  in- 
dustrial niche  and  to  strike  cultural  subjects  from 
school  curricula,  but  to  preempt  and  till  new  fields 
for  culture.  Man  is  a  composite ;  toil  is  not  his 
only  aspect.  Education  must  develop  not  merely 
efficient  producers,  but  efficient  consumers ;  and 
it  must  provide  resource  from  work  as  well  as 
preparation  for  work.  Rhythm  is  the  law  of  life ; 
but  there  is  no  rhythm  in  the  existence  of  one  who 
has  never  learned  the  secret  of  recreation.  This 
secret  is  not  in  alternating  work  and  idleness,  for 
nature  abhors  a  vacuum  and  idleness  is  not  pos- 
sible for  the  human  mind.  The  old  chord  of  work 
will  go  on  vibrating  even  during  enforced  physi- 
cal quiet  if  some  other  chord  is  not  touched.  A 
wide  range  of  interests  is  therefore  necessary  for 
sane  and  wholesome  living ;  and  anything  which 
will  develop  broader  sympathies  and  open  up  new 
modes  of  recreation — all  those  features  of  modern 
175 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

schooling  which  are  too  frequently  stigmatized  as 
decorative  frills — are  in  the  highest  human  sense 
utilitarian. 

The  object  of  vocational  education  is  civic  as 
well  as  human  and  industrial ;  is,  as  our  preface 
stated,  to  hold  pupils  in  school  until  they  are  pre- 
pared for  citizenship.  Therefore,  history  and  civics 
belong  here  even  more  emphatically  than  in  the 
academic  school,  since  to  the  trade  school  will 
come  eighty  per  cent  of  our  voting  public. 

In  short,  we  conclude  that  the  trade  school 
must  not  only  train  dextrous  workers,  but  give, 
in  terms  of  the  working  pupil's  life,  the  mental 
drill  he  misses  by  not  attending  an  orthodox  high 
school. 

The  character  of  work  to  be  done  in  the  voca- 
tional school  determines  the  qualities  desirable 
in  teachers  and  superintendents.  In  the  reaction 
against  academic  ideals  and  methods,  instruction 
in  trade  schools,  and  even  their  management,  is 
often  confided  to  persons  with  wide  trade  knowl- 
edge and  experience,  but  without  pedagogic 
training.  Most  of  the  instructors  in  the  Worces- 
ter, Massachusetts,  trade  high  school,  for  in- 
stance, had  been  foremen  in  local  shops  before 
taking  their  present  positions.  One  of  the  masters 
voluntarily  remarked  to  the  author,  "I  am  not  a 
176 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

trained  teacher  and  when  I  came  into  the  school, 
I  knew  almost  nothing  about  how  to  present  a 
subject  to  my  pupils.  I  knew  how  things  ought 
to  be  done,  but  to  show  the  boys  and  make  them 
understand  was  another  matter.  To  show  thirty 
boys  at  once  was  quite  different  from  showing 
one  greenhorn  in  the  factory."  Here  was  a  man 
who  knew  industry  well,  who  had  just  the  infor- 
mation of  which  his  pupils  stood  in  need,  but 
who  was  handicapped  by  lack  of  transmitting 
power.  Beforehe  could  teach,  he  must  learn  how 
by  lengthy  practice  on  the  youths  who  came  to 
him  for  instruction.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
was,  in  one  of  the  academic  branches,  a  profes- 
sional high  school  teacher  quite  unacquainted 
with  the  trade  needs  of  the  boys  under  her  jur- 
isdiction. She  was  teaching  in  accordance  with 
the  old  academic  ideals  and  completely  vitiating 
any  vocational  atmosphere  which  her  subject 
might  have  had.  In  this  one  school  were  pre- 
sented both  horns  of  the  dilemma  which  con- 
fronts us  in  an  attempt  to  secure  for  the  trade 
school  an  efficient  faculty.  The  workman  cannot 
teach  and  the  teacher  cannot  work.  For  this  new 
field  we  need  a  new  educational  birth  molded  of 
trade  and  scholastic  ideals.  The  successful  trade 
school  teacher  must  be  broadly  educated,  peda- 
177 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

gogically  trained,  and  industrially  practiced  if  he 
is  to  develop  at  all  points  the  capacities  of  his  pu- 
pils. The  mere  mechanic  whose  vision  is  limited 
\by  factory  walls  will  perhaps  (after  he  has  learned 
to  instruct  them)  make  adroit  workers  of  his  pu- 
pils. But  he  will  not  be  able  to  widen  their  outlook 
upon  life  or  even  upon  industry  beyond  the  nar- 
row view  which  they  might  obtain  by  serving  an 
.apprenticeship  in  the  factory  which  shaped  the 
!m  aster. 

Awake  to  the  fact  that  vocational  training  is 
not  merely  a  trade  but  an  educational  problem, 
some  European  countries  have  special  normal 
courses  preparatory  for  trade  school  positions 
and  require,  in  addition  to  this  theoretical  train- 
ing, not  only  that  the  teacher  must  have  been  em- 
ployed in  industry  before  his  pedagogic  career  be- 
gins, but  that  while  he  is  engaged  in  teaching,  he 
must  still  spend  part  of  his  time  in  a  factory  of 
the  type  for  which  he  prepares  his  pupils.  Thus 
it  is  hoped  to  obtain  as  instructors  both  good  me- 
chanics and  broad-minded,  well-balanced  men  of 
practical  culture. 

But  what  will  supplementary  courses  do  for 
the  unfortunate  young  people  who  have,  as  yet, 
no  job  worthy  of  the  name  of  trade  ?  What  of  the 
thousands  of  children  in  the  so-called  juvenile  oc- 

i78 


TYPE  OF  TRADE  SCHOOL  NEEDED 

cupations  where  "  the  best  is  like  the  worst "  ? 
What  of  messenger  boys  ?  Office  boys  ?  Errand 
boys?  What  of  the  entirely  unoccupied  child?1 
The  Manufacturers'  Association  in  its  1908  con- 
vention disapproved  of  founding  schools  for  youths 
already  employed  in  legitimate  commerce  and  in- 
dustry until  those  outside  had  been  provided  for, 
justly  arguing  that  they  stood  most  in  need  of 
assistance.  To  help  the  man  who  already  has  a 
job  and  desert  the  poor  devil  who  can't,  through 
lack  of  training,  procure  one,  seems  an  over-cruel 
application  of  the  parable,  "to  him  that  hath 
shall  be  given."  Here  appears  the  true  function 
of  what  we  have  called  the  preparatory  trade 
school.  There  is  no  future  in  his  own  calling  for 
which  we  can  perfect  the  messenger  boy,  but  we 
may  perhaps  open  up  avenues  to  better  employ- 
ment in  other  lines  by  giving  general  manual, 
mechanic,  and  business  training  which  can  be 
turned  to  good  use  in  any  trade.  Perhaps,  too, 
when  continuation  schools  are  once  established, 
it  will  not  be  so  hard  for  young  workers  to  gain 
entrance  to  desirable  occupations.  Employers 
may  be  willing  to  take  on  apprentices  when  they 
know  that  the  whole  burden  of  training  will  not 

1  "  Probably  child  idleness  is  a  more  serious  matter  in  the 
United  States  to-day  than  child  labor."  Richard  T.  Ely. 
179 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

fall  on  commerce  and  industry ;  when  they  know 
that  juvenile  helpers  will  no  longer  be  a  static, 
unskilled  element  in  their  labor  force. 

In  a  report  of  the  National  Society  for  the 
Promotion  of  Industrial  Education,  we  read  that 
the  industrial  improvement  course  has  assumed 
and  will  probably  continue  to  assume  the  form  of 
an  evening  school.  So  long  as  vocational  self-im- 
provement remains  optional,  this  will  undoubt- 
edly be  the  case  save  where  an  exceptionally  pro- 
gressive employer  cooperates  with  the  educational 
authorities,  as  in  Ludlow,  Fitchburg,  Cincinnatti, 
and  Chicago.  But  should  continuation  courses  be 
made  obligatory,  time  for  them  can  be  taken  (as 
it  must  be  if  the  best  results  are  to  be  accom- 
plished) from  the  working  day  and  such  shifts 
arranged  as  will  not  necessitate  reduplication  of 
the  apprentice  force.  Indeed,  claiming  this 
educational  birthright  of  general  intelligence, 
trade  theory  and  practice  cannot  be  left  to  un- 
guided  whim,  which  may  barter  it  for  a  little 
more  ready  money,  for  early  independence,  for 
any  will-o'-the-wisp  of  youthful  short-sightedness 
or  parental  self-seeking.  Vocational  training  must 
be  made  obligatory. 


XII 

CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

In  discussing  the  difficulty  with  which  youths  en- 
ter desirable  occupations,  we  have  stressed  chiefly 
their  lack  of  training  for  skilled  work.  But  the 
difficulty  is  also  traceable  to  an  ignorance  of  the 
desirability  or  undesirability  of  various  occupa- 
tions, which  leads  to  a  short-sighted  initial  choice 
and  a  permanent  check  in  advancement.  Ignor- 
ant of  their  mental  or  bodily  unfitness  for  a  trade, 
thousands  of  our  most  promising  young  people 
get  into  uncongenial,  spirit-breaking  toil,  or  prac- 
tically commit  suicide  by  taking  up  tasks  for 
which  their  physique  is  inadequate.  Lured  by  a 
comparatively  high  beginning  wage,  children 
wander  into  industrial  cul-de-sacs,  and  students 
estimate  that  the  largest  per  cent  of  unemploy- 
ment is  among  persons  who  have  been  pushed 
out  by  the  younger  generation  from  trades 
offering  neither  prospect  of  advancement  nor 
training  for  other  lines  of  activity.  English  poor- 
houses  are  filling  with  men  and  women  unfitted 
for  any  but  a  pauper's  life  by  their  ill-starred  at- 
181 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

tempts  at  early  self-support.  The  same  waste  of 
human  resources  is  apparent  in  our  own  country. 
The  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial 
Education  found  twenty-five  thousand  children 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  who 
were  engaged  in  the  lowest  unskilled  forms  of 
industry  ;  and  Dr.  Kingsbury's  investigation  in- 
to the  conditions  of  their  employment  showed 
what  a  bleak  industrial  future  they  could  antici- 
pate. 

Trade  schools  of  the  type  suggested  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  will  only  partially  obviate  the 
dangers  of  mischosen  occupation.  For  the  child 
already  engaged  in  a  trade  where  progress  is 
possible,  they  will  open  the  door  to  promotion. 
For  the  child  caught  in  some  mesh  of  toil  with 
no  outlook  for  the  future,  they  will  open  the  door 
of  escape.  But  they  cannot  save  children  from 
getting  into  the  wrong  job,  and  conserve  the 
time,  ability,  and  potential  accomplishment 
wasted  by  our  hit-or-miss  method  of  choosing  a 
vocation.  No  amount  of  industrial  education  can 
fit  a  child  well  for  something  to  which  he  is  un- 
adapted,  and,  until  we  make  sure  that  our  young 
men  and  women  go  into  the  work  to  which  they 
are  best  suited  and  which  will  give  them  the  best 
chance  of  rising  in  the  industrial  scale,  elaborate 
182 


CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

systems  of  trade  education  will  not  repay  the  in- 
vestment which  they  represent.  Trade  schools 
need  a  supplementary  measure  to  utilize  most 
effectually  their  possibilities  ;  and  this  supple- 
mentary measure  is  systematic  guidance  of  youth 
in  selecting  an  occupation.  The  boy  or  girl 
emerging  from  the  shelter  of  school  life  into  the 
hurly-burly  of  business,  needs  to  be  told  the  facts 
about  openings  which  present  themselves.  They 
cannot  judge  for  themselves  because  trade  has 
shut  itself  up  in  factories  with  No  Admittance 
signs  across  the  workroom  doors.  If  the  child 
consults  an  employee  as  to  the  nature  of  a  busi- 
ness, he  hears  of  single  processes  performed  day 
after  day  without  variation  —  and,  considered 
singly,  the  processes  of  one  trade  are  about  the 
same  and  about  as  unattractive  as  those  of  any 
other.  The  child  must  be  made  to  understand 
that  no  employer  of  high-grade  help  wants  a 
worker  who  has  spent  the  formative  years  of  his 
life  as  a  messenger  or  errand  boy,  drifting  from 
job  to  job  and  forming  irregular,  shiftless  habits 
inimical  to  business  efficiency.  He  needs  to  be 
shown  the  wisdom  of  starting  in  a  skilled  trade 
at  a  low  wage  rather  than  in  an  unskilled,  blind- 
alley  trade  at  a  temptingly  high  one.  He  should 
also  be  cautioned  against  unsanitary  occupations. 
183 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

The  immigrant  child  ought  surely  to  be  warned 
of  industrial  pitfalls  in  the  trades  at  which  aliens 
snatch  so  helplessly  while  struggling  for  a  foot- 
hold on  American  soil.  Such  systematic  voca- 
tional guidance,  nation-wide  in  range  of  vision, 
could  distribute  more  rationally  our  foreign  in- 
flux, since  it  is  timidity  and  ignorance  of  other 
opportunities  which  bind  immigrants  to  huddled 
quarters  in  seacoast  towns.  The  finer  qualities 
of  our  immigrant  population,  those  spiritual  and 
intellectual  traits  which  should  brighten  and 
vary  the  pattern  of  American  life,  we  stifle  by 
thrusting  the  new  arrival  into  a  treadmill  of 
drabbest  American  toil  out  of  which  he  comes 
shorn  of  most  that  is  foreign  and  stimulating  in 
mind  and  manners.  The  evils  introduced  into 
our  country  by  immigration  are  bruited  abroad 
at  the  expense  of  the  good,  the  racial  freshness, 
the  poetry,  and  the  peculiar  talents  which  an 
enlightened  policy  would  cultivate  till,  under 
more  favorable  environment,  they  blossomed  like 
rare  exotics  in  American  gardens.  To  guide  im- 
migrant children  into  occupations  adapted  to 
preserve  and  develop  their  valuable  racial  assets 
would,  perhaps,  prove  the  sanest  way  of  Ameri- 
canizing our  new  citizens. 

The  child  not  only  lacks  knowledge  of  the 
184 


CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

different  trades,  but  he  needs  to  be  stimulated 
to  think  of  his  own  qualifications  as  a  worker. 
"Know  thyself,"  said  the  old  philosopher,  and 
surely,  in  the  choice  of  a  vocation,  self-knowledge 
is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  Yet  it  would  seem 
that  self-knowledge  is  a  lost  art  of  the  romantic 
age.  People  are  interested  more  and  more  in 
outward,  objective  things,  forgetting  that  things 
are  important  only  for  their  value  and  that  value 
is  an  expression  of  personality.  An  inspiring 
fact  about  charitable  and  corrective  work  is  that 
it  gives  us  better  methods  of  handling  normal 
individuals.  Maud  Miner1  recently  said  of  way- 
ward girls,  "  All  these  fallen  women  have  ambi- 
tions, ideals,  and  talents  just  as  have  the  rest  ot 
us.  It  is  the  task  of  the  probation  officer  to  get 
hold  of  these,  quicken  them  and  sustain  them 
till  they  carry  the  girl  out  of  her  life  of  shame 
into  one  of  honorable  activity."  Just  as  have  the 
rest  of  us !  There  is  the  kernel  of  significant 
truth.  Who  knows  what  funds  of  usefulness  are 
yearly  squandered  in  people  who  come  to  noth- 
ing —  good  or  bad  —  because  their  real  abilities 
have  never  been  given  proper  outlet  in  activity  ? 
And   who  can  hesitate   to   prophesy  that   the 

1  Secretary  of  the  Probation  Association  and  formerly  pro- 
bation officer  in  the  New  York  Night  Court. 

!85 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

national  happiness  and  prosperity  would  be  a 
hundred  fold  augmented  if  every  human  being 
could  industrially  find  himself  and  do  just  that 
thing  he  came  into  the  world  to  do  ? 

Not  only  what  trade  the  child  shall  follow,  but 
what  further  studies,  if  any,  he  shall  pursue,  is 
usually  decided  at  the  end  of  the  grammar  school 
course.  Here  is  the  crucial  moment  when  children 
looking  aimlessly  for  a  job  can  be  economically 
and  permanently  helped.  To  the  oft-repeated 
question,  "  What  can  the  grammar  schools  do  for 
industrial  education  ?  "  we  therefore  answer,  not 
only,  "  prepare  for  trade  instruction  by  basic  man- 
ual training,"  but  "  emphasize  the  fact  that  school 
looks  toward  life  rather  than  toward  learning,  by 
directing  graduates  into  a  congenial  vocation  or 
an  institution  preparing  therefor."  Thus  should 
we  better  the  old  educational  economy,  which 
saved  at  the  spigot  and  wasted  at  the  bunghole 
in  compelling  school  attendance  and  then  al- 
lowing enormous  leakage  between  school  and 
work. 

To  guide  children  in  the  choice  of  a  career 
necessitates  a  detailed,  inclusive  knowledge  of  in- 
dustrial, commercial,  professional,  and  agricul- 
tural conditions,  which  can  scarcely  be  expected 
of  a  teacher.  Here  is  the  function  of  the  voca- 
186 


CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

tional  expert.  In  school  activity,  as  in  all  funda- 
mental social  endeavor,  a  reliable  body  of  compre- 
hensive statistics  as  to  our  industrial  situation  is 
thus  seen  to  be  imperative.  To  ground  a  system 
of  vocational  education  ;  to  draft  a  course  of  study 
for  a  trade  school ;  to  give  the  grammar  school 
graduate  adequate  counsel  when  he  vacillates  be- 
tween idleness,  further  schooling,  or  immediate 
work  of  a  dozen  types  —  to  do  any  one  of  these 
things,  we  must  know  the  facts  as  to  our  business 
world.  In  every  community  a  thorough  investiga- 
tion of  living  and  working  conditions,  kept  up  to 
date  by  periodic  tallying,  would  be  a  paying  in- 
vestment. To  its  records  would  go  the  agitator 
for  factory  regulation,  the  student  of  woman  and 
child  labor,  the  advocate  of  a  minimum  wage,  the 
unionist  eager  to  fix  a  standard  living  wage,  the 
Consumers'  League  preparing  a  list  of  fair  houses 
or  granting  the  label  to  manufactured  goods,  the 
housing  expert,  and  the  reformer  combating  the 
social  evil  or  fighting  for  more  generous  recrea- 
tion facilities.  From  such  a  survey,  all  movements 
for  social  betterment  would  draw  the  facts  where- 
by to  shape  their  programs.  It  would  keep  a  steady 
finger  on  the  pulse  of  life,  and  experience  in  such 
an  investigation  would  be  invaluable  training  for 
the  various  forms  of  constructive  effort,  as  it 
187 


THE  PEOPLES  SCHOOL 

would  give  balance  of  mind  and  insight  into  the 
underlying  sources  of  social  disorder. 

The  work  of  such  clearing-houses  of  informa- 
tion as  the  Boston  Vocation  Bureau  is  described 
by  Meyer  Bloornfield  in  The  Vocational  Guidance 
of  Youth,  yet  even  this  Boston  bureau  feels  that 
the  surest  way  to  bring  the  results  of  its  investi- 
gation home  to  those  who  need  them  is  through 
cooperation  with  the  school  organization.  The 
central  bureau  becomes  the  repository  of  informa- 
tion ;  the  school  authorities  are  the  link  which 
draws  together  the  child  and  the  advisory  expert. 

The  results  of  a  successful  system  of  vocational 
guidance  will  be  manifold.  Better  adjustment  of 
labor  to  demand,  greater  satisfaction,  efficiency 
and  advancement  on  the  part  of  the  worker,  les- 
sened unemployment  and  labor  wreckage,  —  all 
begin  to  attest  the  value  of  existing  experiments 
to  those  directly  touched  by  guidance  work.  But 
the  most  important  results  come,  not  from  special 
advice  given  to  individuals,  but  from  bringing  the 
public  to  consider  the  relative  desirability  of  di- 
verse occupations.  Unprejudiced  guidance  must 
mean  a  partial  boycott  of  undesirable  trades,  for 
only  inferior  workers  will  seek  employment  where 
conditions  are  dangerous  or  unsanitary,  hours 
long,  wages  low,  and  work  tedious.  Dissemination 
188 


CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

of  these  facts,  now  but  vaguely  apprehended,  will 
enforce,  more  surely  than  ill-supported  legislation, 
the  installation  of  safety  and  sanitary  devices  and 
the  general  improvement  of  labor  conditions.  The 
manufacturer  is  made  or  unmade  by  patronage, 
and  progressive  employers,  now  forced  by  com- 
petition into  countenancing  labor  conditions  which 
they  deplore,  would  welcome  enlightened  public 
opinion  on  these  questions,  since  it  would  be  the 
final  weapon  in  driving  from  the  field  unprincipled 
competitors.  Vocational  guidance  wisely  con- 
ducted would  prove  both  an  effective  means  of 
social  conservation,  and  a  potent  force  in  recon- 
structing industrial  standards. 


XIII 

CONCLUSION 

The  term  "vocational  training"  is  as  broad  as  life 
itself,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  this  brief  volume, 
we  have  barely  broached  the  question.  Trades 
are  multitudinous ;  those  trades  only  could  be 
our  theme  which  press  upon  us  most  urgently  as 
an  educational  problem.  But  the  principles 
evolved  for  industrial,  agricultural,  and  domestic 
courses  are  equally  applicable  to  commercial, 
mercantile,  technical,  and  professional  training. 
Even  within  the  trades  chosen  for  discussion, 
there  has  been  a  further  Jimitation  in  treatment. 
We  have  dealt  principally  with  the  ordinary  man  ; 
technical  schools,  whether  of  high  school  or  col- 
lege grade,  aim  definitely  to  prepare  for  manager- 
ial positions.  Yet  these  higher  schools  are  one  in 
spirit  with  institutions  giving  elementary  trade 
instruction  ;  all  fit  for  productive,  self-supporting 
life;  all  look  toward  the  practical  social  use 
rather  than  the  individual  acquisition  of  culture 
and  knowledge.  The  articulation  of  the  elemen- 
tary vocational  school  with  a  complete  system  of 
190 


CONCLUSION 


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191 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

vocational  education,  and  the  place  in  this  plan 
for  purely  academic  training  is  shown  by  the  ac- 
companying tentative  outline.  Such  a  schedule  is 
but  the  world  in  abstract,  a  plat  of  that  arterial 
system  through  which  inspiration  and  intelli- 
gence circulate  to  every  social  organ. 

The  function  of  this  present  book,  however,  is 
suggestive  rather  than  exhaustive,  and  its  object 
will  have  been  fully  accomplished  if,  amid  the 
windings  of  its  theme,  one  dominant  idea  rises 
continually  to  view :  the  idea  of  social  welfare. 
This  is  the  touchstone  by  which  the  trade  school 
will  be  tested.  Not  because  agriculture,  industry, 
and  homemaking  need  competent  workers ;  not 
because  vocational  training  will  quicken  the  art- 
istic sensibilities  of  our  people  ;  not  because  pre- 
sent schools  do  not  interest  our  children  ;  not 
because  man  has  a  right  to  self-support ;  not  be- 
cause criminals  will  find  in  the  trade  school  their 
salvation ;  not  because  women  receive  from  it 
marital  and  industrial  freedom  ;  not  because  the 
unionist  sees  therein  an  advantage  for  his  order 
and  the  socialist  believes  it  a  step  nearer  the 
millennium :  —  but  because,  from  the  deeply 
underlying  harmony  of  these  several  interests, 
we  infer  one  mighty  common  interest  for  all 
mankind.  The  vocational  school  preserves  nor- 
192 


CONCLUSION 

mality  and  efficiency ;  it  strikes  to  the  bottom, 
and  has,  in  the  broad  program  for  social  better- 
ment, a  central  place.  Education  and  legislation  : 
education  the  creator,  legislation  the  conserver ; 
education  the  fluidizing,  legislation  the  crystal- 
lizing element  —  these  are  the  only  sure  instru- 
ments of  progress.  And  the  real  motive  power 
and  vital  spark  lie  in  education. 

Democratic  and  practical  schools  for  plain  men, 
more  than  other  educational  propaganda,  contain 
this  potent  force  for  uplift.  More  than  anti-tuber- 
culosis societies,  more  than  scientific  charity  and 
correction,  more  than  juvenile  improvement  clubs, 
Boys'  Scout  movements,  or  any  brave  enterprise 
pushing  forward  alone  to  the  frontiers  of  regen- 
eration !  For  in  vocational  schools,  Knowledge 
comes  forward  saying,  as  in  the  old  play,  — 

M  Every  man,  I  will  go  with  thee  to  be  thy  guide, 
In  thy  most  need  to  go  by  thy  side." 

They  will  widen  the  scope  of  education  to  em- 
brace all  classes  of  society,  to  include  those  very 
classes  which  charitable  agencies  strive  ineffect- 
ually, because  fragmentarily,  to  enlighten. 

The  problem  of  vocational  training  is  also  more 
profound  than  preparing  men  and  women  to  work. 
It  is  to  educate  the  public  mind,  to  embody  a 
193 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

working  ideal  that  will  gradually  transform  in- 
dustrial practice,  until  labor,  no  longer  cramping 
and  brutalizing,  is  a  beautiful  realization  of  the 
noblest  human  possibilities  ;  until  the  old  words 
of  the  Benedictine  Rule  take  on  their  fullest 
meaning,  and  to  work  is  verily  to  pray. 


XIV 

BIBLIOGRAPHY      ON      ELEMENTARY      VOCA- 
TIONAL EDUCATION 

In  selecting  a  bibliography  on  vocational  train- 
ing, one  is  hampered  by  the  great  bulk  of  ma- 
terial dealing  with  the  topic,  and  by  the  endless 
repetition  of  subject-matter  which  this  literature 
displays.  Discussion  has  so  far  been  largely  con- 
fined to  criticism  of  current  educational  methods, 
arguments  for  the  establishment  of  vocational 
schools,  and  general  statistics  concerning  foreign 
systems  of  vocational  education.  The  first  two 
classes  of  articles  are  as  a  rule  vaguely  theoreti- 
cal, and  the  last  class  often  fails  to  give  a  good 
working  idea,  either  of  a  foreign  system  as  a 
whole,  or  of  just  what  is  done  in  any  particular 
trade  school.  Even  the  detailed  descriptions, 
published  in  English,  of  foreign  vocational 
schools  are  usually  unsatisfactory  because  they 
give  ideals  and  abstracts  of  curricula  rather 
than  actual  classroom  methods  and  their  re- 
sults as  a  training  for  subsequent  employment. 
Reliable  and  complete  studies  of  trade  school 
195 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

results  as  seen  in  the  subsequent  experiences  of 
graduates  is  lacking  for  both  American  and  for- 
eign institutions. 

The  object  in  compiling  this  bibliography  has 
been  to  make  it  at  once  as  brief  and  as  represent- 
ative as  possible,  and  the  following  books,  articles 
and  reports  are  chosen,  not  because  they  alone 
are  worthy  of  perusal,  but  because  each  presents 
the  subject  from  a  different  and  important  point 
of  view. 

For  a  fuller  account  of  general  material  on 
American  phases  of  the  question,  see  the  Se- 
lected Bibliography  published  by  the  National 
Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Educa- 
tion. 

I 
France 

Laws  Governing  Vocational  Training. 

Cent  Arts  de  Lutte  Sociale :  La  Legislation  de  L'En/ance,  Parts 
II  and  III.  Jacques  Bonzon.  (Gillaumin  et  Cie,  Paris,  1899.) 
Historical  and  Social  Review  of  Need  for  Trade  Education. 
V  Apprentissage :     Hier  —  AujourtThui  —  Demain.      Pierre 

Brizon.  ("  Pages  Libres,"  Paris,  1909.) 
La  Crise  de  V  Apprentissage  et  La  Riforme  de  V Enseigne- 
ment  Professionnel  and  L'Age  (T  Admission  des  En/ants  au 
Travail  et  Travail  de  Demi-Temps.     Martin  Saint-Le'on. 
(Chronique  Sociale  de  France,  Lyon,  1908.) 
De  La  Prostitution  des  En/ants,  Part  ill,  chapter  II,  Eugene 
Prevost.     (Plon,  Nourrit  et  Cie,  Paris,  1909.) 
I96 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

V  Enseignement   Minager.    Comptesse    Diesbach.   (Tegui, 

Paris,  1904.) 
Description  of  French  System  of  Trade  Education. 
V Enseignetnent  Technique.    Astier  et  Cuminal.  (Roustan, 

Paris,  1909.) 
U  Enseignement  Professionnel  en  France.     Rene   Leblanc 

(Comely,  Paris,  1905.) 
Les  £coles  et  Les  CEuvres  Municipals  d'  Enseignement  h  Paris. 

M.  Lavergne.  (Mouillot,  Paris,  1900.) 


II 

Germany 

Practical  Efficiency  of  Trade  Schools. 

The  Cause  and  Extent  of  the  Recent  Industrial  Progress  of 

Germany,  p.  147.  Earl  Dean  Howard.     (Houghton  Mifflin     ' 

Co.,  Boston,  1907.) 
Description  of  German  System  of  Trade  Education. 
Handbuch  des  deutschen  Fortbildungsschulwesens.    Vols.  I-VI. 

Oscar  Pache.  (Wittenberg,  1896-1902.) 
V Enseignetnent  Technique.     Astier  et  Cuminal.    (Roustan, 

Paris,  1909.) 
Industrial  Education  in  Germany.     (Report  of  U.  S.  Dept. 

of  Commerce  and  Labor.  Vol.  xxxnr,  p.  147.) 
Industrial  Schools  in  Germany.     (Report  of   Mass.     Com- 
mission on  Industrial  Education,  p.  258,  1906.) 
Trade  Schools  in  Certain  Localities. 

The  Prussian  System  of  Vocational  Schools.     ( Report  of  U .  S . 

Bureau  of  Education,  1910,  chap,  vn.) 
The  Technical  Continuation  Schools  of  Munich.     Paul  Hanus.  V 

[School  Review,  vol.  13,  p.  678  ) 
Ubersicht  iiber  das  Fortbildungsschulwesen  und  die  gewerblu 

chen  Unterrichtsanstalten  der  Stadt  Berlin.     (Report  of  the 

Berliner  Schulrat  for  1909-10.) 
197 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

ill 

Switzerland 

Reviews  of  Swiss  System  of  Trade  Education. 

V Enseignement  Technique .    Astier  et  Cuminal.     (Roustan, 

Paris,  1909.) 
Industrial  Schools  of  Switzerland.     (Report  of  Mass.  Com- 
mission on  Industrial  Education,  p.  215,  1906.) 

IV 

England 

Need  for  Trade  Education. 

Majority  and  Minority  Reports,  Royal  Commission  on  the 
Poor-Laws  and.the  Relief  of  Distress.  (Wyman  &  Son,  Lon- 
don, 1909.) 

The  Present  Industrial  Importance  of  Technical  .Education. 
Sir  Phillip  Magnus.  {Engineering Magazine,  vol.  24,  p.  169.) 

Fabianism  and  the  Empire.  George  Bernard  Shaw.  (Rich- 
ards, London,  1900.) 

The  Nation,  the  Apprentice,  and  the  Polytechnic.     S.  G.  Raw- 
son.     {Contemporary  Review,  vol.  80,  p.  584.) 
Description  of  English  Experiments  in  Trade  Education. 

Continuation  Schools  in  England  and  Elsewhere  :  Their  Place 
in  the  Educational  System  of  an  Industrial  and  Commer- 
cial State.     Michael  Sadler.    (Manchester  University  Press, 

1907) 
Technical    Education    in    Evening   Schools.     Clarence    H. 

Creasey.   (Sonnenschein,  London,  1905.) 
Industrial  Efficiency.  Arthur  Shadwell.   (Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  New  York,  1906.) 
Discussion  of  Type  of  School  needed  in  Great  Britain. 
Foundations  of  Trade  and  Industry.     Fabian  Ware.     (Ap- 
pleton,  New  York,  1901.) 

I98 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Report,  Consultative  Committee  on  Attendance,  Compulsory 
or  Otherwise,  at  Continuation  Schools.  (Wyman  &  Son, 
London,  1909.) 

V 

United  States 

Apprenticeship  in  the  United  States. 

The  Apprenticeship  System  and  Its   Relation  to  Industrial 

Education.     Carroll  D.  Wright.     (U.  S.  Bureau  of  Ed., 

1908,  Bulletin  6.) 
The  Apprenticeship  System.     Charles  Pidgin.    (Mass.  Bureau 

of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1906.) 
Education  of  Workers  in  the  Shoe  Industry.     Arthur  Dean. 

(Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro.  of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  8.) 
Education  for  Efficiency  in  Railroad  Service.     J.    Shirley 

Eaton.     (U.  S.  Bureau  of  Ed.,  1909,  Bulletin  10.) 
Industrial  Education.     Charles   Thurber.     {School  Review, 

vol.  15,  p.  375.) 
Industrial  Education  of  Working    Girls.     Charles    Pidgin 

(Mass.  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1905,  Part  1. 
How  Girls  Learn  the  Alillinery  Trade.     Alice  Barrows.  ( 7he 

Survey,  April  18,  1910.) 
The  Training  of  Millinery  Workers.    Alice  Barrows.    (Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Academy  of  Political  Science,  vol.  1,  no.  1. 
Conditions  of  Entrance  to  the  Principal   Trades.     (U.   S. 

Bureau  of  Labor,  1906,  Bulletin  67.) 
What  is  Ahead  for  the  Untrained  Child  in  Industry.     Suzan 

Myra   Kingsbury.     {Charities  and  the   Commons,  Oct.  5, 

1907) 
Decay  of  Apprenticeship  and  Corporation  ^Schools.     Ralph 

Albertson.     (Charities  and  the  Commons,  Oct.  5,  1907.) 
Apprenticeship  and  Corporation  Schools.     (Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro 

of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  13.) 

199 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

Trade  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

A  Descriptive  List  of  Trade  and  Industrial  Schools  in  the 
United  States.    Charles  R.  Richards.     (Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro. 
of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  u.) 
Legislation  upon  Industrial  Education  in  the  United  States. 
(Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro.  of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  12.) 
Results  of  Trade  Schooling  as  a  Preparation  for  Work. 
See  Report  of    Russell   Sage   Foundation   Committee  on 
Women's  Work.     About  to  be  published. 
Attitude  of  Trade  Unions  toward  Industrial  Education. 
Industrial  Education.    (Bulletin  of  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  Washington,  1910.) 
Industrial  and  Agricultural  Education  for  the  Negro. 

Up  from  Slavery.     Booker  T.  Washington.     (Doubleday, 

Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  1903.) 
The  Education    of  the   Negro.    Booker    T.    Washington. 
(Lyon,  Chicago,  1904.) 
Elementary  Agricultural  Education  in  the  United  States. 
Agricultural  Education,  including  Nature  Study  and  School 
Gardens.    James   Ralph   Jewell.     (U.  S.  Bureau  of  Ed., 

1907,  Bulletin  2.) 

On  the  Training  of  Persons  to  Teach  Agriculture  in  Public 
Schools.    Liberty  Hyde   Bailey.     (U.   S.  Bureau  of  Ed., 

1908,  Bulletin  1.) 

Agricultural  Education.     (Report  of  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Ed., 

1910,  chap,  iv.) 
The  American  System  of  Agricultural  Education.    A.  C.  True 

and  Dick  J.  Crosby.  (U.  S.  Dept.  of  Agriculture,  Office  of 

Experiment  Stations,  Circular  106.) 
Cyclopedia  of  American  Agriculture.     L.  H.  Bailey.    (Mac- 

millan  Co.,  New  York.) 
See  also  bibliography  in  Professor  Bailey's  bulletin  named 

above. 
The  Type  of  Trade  School  needed  in  the  United  States. 
Education  for  the  Trades  ;  From  the  Standpoint  of  the  Manu-  , 
200 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

facturer.    Milton  P.  Higgins.     ( Proceedings  of  Nat.  Ed. 

Assoc,  1903,  p.  597.) 
Industrial  Education  for  Women.    Mrs.  Raymond  Robbins. 

(Proceedings  of  Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro.  of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin 
10.) 
The  True  Ideal  of  a  Public  School  System  that  Aims  to  Bene- 
fit AIL    Discussion  by  Jane  Addams.  (Proceedings  of  Nat. 

Soc.  for  Pro.  of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  6,  Part  II.) 
Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,  chapter  VI.     Jane  Addams. 

(Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1905.) 
What  can  the  Grade  School  do  for  Industrial  Education  ? 

Anna  Garlan  Spencer.     (Proceedings  of  Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro. 

of  Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  10.) 
Evening  Schools ;    Their  Purpose  and  Limitations.     John 

Shearer.     (Proceedings  of  Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro.  of  Ind.  Ed., 

Bulletin  10.) 
The  Intermediate  Industrial  School.    Charles  R.  Allen  and 

William  H.  Elson.     (Proceedings  of  Nat.  Soc.  for  Pro.  of 

Ind.  Ed.,  Bulletin  10.) 
Vocational  Guidance. 

The    Vocational    Guidance    of    Youth.     Meyer    Bloomfield. 

(Houghton  Mifflin  Co.   Boston,  191 1.) 
Choosing  a  Vocation.  Frank  Parsons.    (Houghton  Mifflin  Co., 

Boston,  1909.) 
The  Labor  Exchange  in  Relation  to  Boy  and  Girl  Labor. 

Frederick  Keeling.     (P.  S.  King  &  Son,  London.) 
Report,  Apprenticeship  and  Skilled  Employment  Association. 

(Denison  House,  London,  1909.) 
Pamphlets  descriptive  of  opportunities  for  boys  and  girls  in 
agriculture,  commerce,  industry  and  the  professions  have 
been  published  by  — 
Boston  Vocation  Bureau  ; 

Students'  Aid  Committee  of  Brooklyn  High  School,  Teach- 
ers' Association  ; 
Poughkeepsie  Board  of  Education  ; 
201 


THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 

English  Apprenticeship  and  Skilled  Employment  Commit- 
tees ; 

Albert  Otto  Paul  and  C.  Bange  of  Leipzig ; 

The  Woman's  Municipal  League  and  the  Woman's  Educa- 
tional and  Industrial  Union  of  Boston,  etc. 
General  Discussion  of  Vocational  Training  and  Allied  Topics. 

The  Place  of  Industries  in  Elementary  Education.  Kather- 
ine  Dopp.  (University  of  Chicago  Press,  1906.) 

The  Movement  for  Industrial  Education.  (Collection  of  arti' 
cles  in  Charities  and  the  Commons  for  Oct.  5,  1907.) 

Educational  Aims  and  Educational  Values  and  Beginnings 
in  Industrial  Education.  Paul  Hanus.  (Houghton  Mifflin 
Co.,  Boston,  1908.) 

The  Worker  and  the  State.  Arthur  Dean.  (Century  Co., 
New  York,  1910.) 

The  Problem  of  Vocational  Education.  David  Snedden. 
(Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston,  191 1.) 

Education  for  Efficiency.  E.  Davenport.  (Heath  &  Co., 
Boston,  1909.) 

Education  for  Efficiency.  Charles  W.  Eliot.  (Houghton 
Mifflin  Co.,  Boston,  1909.) 

The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets.  Jane  Addams. 
(Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1910.) 

Unemployment.  W.  H.  Beveridge.  (Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  New  York,  1909.) 

Industrial  Democracy.  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb.  (Long- 
mans Green  &  Co.,  New  York,  1897.) 

The  Town  Child.  Reginald  Bray.  (T.  Fisher  Unwin,  Lon- 
don, 1909.) 

Education  for  Citizenship.  George  Kerschensteiner.  (Rand, 
McNally  &  Co.,  Chicago,  191 1.) 


OUTLINE 

I.    FOREWORD 

i.  Small  number  of  children  in  high  school     ...      I 

2.  Meaning  to  nation I 

3.  Combating  ignorance  the  true  constructive  phil- 

anthropy   2 

4.  Object  of  present  discussion 4 

II.    THE  HAND  OF  IRON 

1.  The  true  pedagogue  essentially  a  man  of  the  world  6 

2.  This  is  an  age  of  highly  specialized  industry  .     .  6 

3.  Decay  of  apprenticeship 10 

4.  Effect  on  production  of  the  subservience  of  the 

man  and  his  mind  to  the  machine 13 

5.  Scarcity  of  skilled  workers 20 

6.  Unemployment  and  vagrancy 21 

7.  Overcrowding  in  non-industrial  lines 22 

III.    THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL 

1.  Origin  of  present  system  of  popular  education     .     24 

2.  Embodies  at  once  a  democratic  view  of  men  and 

an  undemocratic  view  of  society 26 

3<  The  high  school  course  from  the  standpoint  of 

the  manual  worker 27 

4.  Small  enrollment  explained 27 

5.  High  schools  direct  graduates  into  professions 

and  commerce 27 

203 


OUTLINE 

6.  Strictly  developmental  function  of  so-called  man- 

ual-training courses 30 

7.  Reasons  for  dropping  out  during  high  school 

course . 32 

8.  Devitalized  teaching 35 

9.  "  The  course  of  study  for  its  own  sake  "...      37 

IV.    A  SCHOOL  FOR  THE  PLAIN  MAN 

1.  Industry  needs  a  scientific  spirit  in  every  worker      38 

2.  Salutary  effect  on  academic  education  of  alliance 

with  trade  training . 39 

3.  Reasons  for  expecting  larger  school  enrollment 

when  vocational  schools  are  established    .     .      42 

4.  Bearing  of  trade  education  on  international  com- 

petition       46 

5.  Vocational  training  a  ground  plank  in  the  so- 

cial betterment  program 48 

6.  Child  labor  and  the  trade  school 51 

7.  Social  advantages  of  trade  training  and  its  influ- 

ence on  unimaginative  toil 52 

V.    TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  THE  WOMAN 

1.  The  economic  dependence  of  woman  ....       57 

2.  An  unorganized  strike  against  the  unprogressive 

and  injurious  labor  conditions  in  the  home- 
making  trade 61 

3.  Modifications  of  the  family  institution  necessary 

to  give  women  human  freedom 61 

4.  How  to  persuade  women  that  housekeeping  is 

interesting 62 

5.  Training  for  child  rearing 63 

204 


OUTLINE 

6.  Business  and  industrial  training  for  women  .     .      66 

7.  Problem  of  late  marriages 70 

8.  Vocational  training  as  a  partial  remedy  for  pros- 

titution   71 

VI.    IN  THE  COUNTRY 

1.  Urban  character  of  our  civilization 74 

2.  Neglect  of  rural  resources  ;  human,  social,  and 

economic 75 

3.  Beginnings  of  agricultural  education  for  upper 

classes 77 

4.  Comparative  neglect  of  plain  farmer    ....  77 

5.  Soil  as  a  natural  resource 78 

6.  Necessity  of  training  for  successful  farming.     .  78 

7.  Form  agricultural  education  should  take  in  rural 

grammar  and  high  schools 80 

8.  What  is  already  being  done  at  home  and  abroad      84 

9.  Human  rather  than  economic  aspect  of  problem      89 

VII.   TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  ORGANIZED 
LABOR 

1.  Views  of  American  Federation  of  Labor  on  in- 

dustrial education 91 

2.  Attitude  of  trade  unions  toward  apprenticeship.      92 

3.  Labor  problems  which  arise  in  grounding  trade 

schools 94 

4.  Effect  on  unionism  of  public  trade  education ; 

the  sale  of  school-made  goods,  rise  in  wages, 
security  from  immigrant  competition,  greater 
effectiveness  in  trade-union  action    ....      97 

205 


OUTLINE 


VIII.    TRADE  EDUCATION  AND  SOCIALISM 

1.  What  socialism  is  and  is  not 102 

2.  Point  at  which  trade  education  touches  socialism  104 

3.  Increasingly  socialistic  form  of  society      .     .    .  104 

4.  Greater  intelligence  and  civic  spirit  which  this 

demands  from  voters 105 

5.  Intelligence  needed  not  only  to  realize  the  social- 

istic ideal  without  injustice,  but  to  conduct 

efficiently  a  socialistic  state 106 

IX.    FOREIGN  TRADE  SCHOOLS 

1.  Advantages   of   study    of    foreign   vocational 

schools 109 

2.  Three  types  of  trade  schools no 

3.  Origin  of  trade  schools  in  France ill 

4.  Characteristics  of  French  course  of  study      .     .  113 

5.  Detailed    description    of    two    Parisian    trade 

schools 114 

6.  Advantages  and  disadvantages  of  this  system  as 

seen  in  actual  results 123 

7.  Two  solutions  offered 126 

8.  German  ideal  in  industrial  education     ....  126 

9.  Berlin  law  governing  trade  education   ....  129 

10.  A  typical  continuation  school  for  apprentices    .  130 

11.  Two  higher  trade  schools  for  experienced  work- 

ers      133 

12.  The  practice  shops 136 

13.  Vocational  training  for  girls 136 

14.  Contrast  between  the  Munich  and  the  Berlin 

ideals  for  industrial  education 137 

206 


OUTLINE 

15.  Superiority  of  Munich  plan 138 

16.  The  Pranck  continuation  school 139 

17.  Higher  schools  for  locksmiths 141 

18.  Estimate  of  Munich  system 142 

19.  The  Swiss  system  as  a  model  of  harmonious  co- 

operation between  labor,  capital,  legislative 
bodies,  and  educational  authorities  ....     143 

X.     AMERICAN  EXPERIMENTS 

1.  General  outline  of  trade  schools  in  the  United 

States 149 

2.  Description  and  criticism  of  work  in  preparatory 

trade  schools 150 

3.  In  trade  schools  designed  to  supplant  appren- 

ticeship      154 

4.  In  technical  high  schools 157 

5.  In  evening  schools  and  part  time  schools  (public 

and  private) 158 

6.  General  summary  of  value  of  these  experiments     164 

XI.    THE   TYPE   OF    TRADE   SCHOOL  NEEDED 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

1.  An  ideal  for  American  education 167 

2.  Mistakes  made  in  grounding  trade  schools    .     .     168 

3.  Investigation  which  should  precede  grounding 

such  schools 169 

4.  Tentative  statement  of  type  needed     .     .     .    .  171 

5.  When  trade  instruction  should  begin    ....  172 

6.  Balance  between  academic  and  trade  instruction  173 

7.  Teachers  for  trade  schools 1 76 

8.  True  function  of  preparatory  trade  schools   .     .  178 

9.  Shall  vocational  training  be  obligatory?    .     .     .  180 

207 


OUTLINE 


XII.    CHOOSING  A  VOCATION 

1.  Human  and  industrial  loss  from  present  chaotic 

methods  of  choosing  a  vocation 181 

2.  Reasons  for  unwise  choice 182 

3.  Inadequacy  of  mere  vocational  education.    .    .  182 

4.  The  need  for  vocational  guidance 182 

5.  Function  of  the  vocational  expert 186 

6.  Wider  outcome  of  vocational  guidance     .    .    .  188 

XIII.    CONCLUSION 

1.  Limitations  inevitable  in  treating  subject ...  190 

2.  Tentative  plan  for  a  complete  system  of  voca- 

tional training 191 

3.  Social  welfare  the  real  argument  for  the  trade 

school 192 

4.  The  trade  school's  contribution  to  social  progress 

through  the  individual 193 

5.  Reaction  on  industrial  methods 194 

XIV.    BIBLIOGRAPHY  ON  ELEMENTARY  VOCA- 
TIONAL   EDUCATION 

1.  Scope  of  the  bibliography 195 

2.  France 196 

3.  Germany 197 

4.  Switzerland 198 

5.  England 198 

6.  United  States 199 


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